It's My Life
by Fallen Crest
Summary: Living in a new house in a new country Ed has to make it through school, taking care of his brother and dealing with a controlling father who is taking his social life away. To get his social life back he has to go behind his father's back with Al's help
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: I don't own Fullmetal Alchemist.**

**A/N: I decided to write this story because I liked the idea of high school fics with FMA characters. But I haven't been able to find one I like because all of them are yaoi. I wanted one that wasn't yaoi so I decided to write one myself.**

**This story is AU so a couple things about this story:**

**-I made Ed three years older than Al.**

**-This story takes place in the 1990s. I'm not sure exactly where there, just in that time zone.**

**-The brothers live in Germany, at the beginning at least.**

**-There is no alchemy in this story. It will probably just be mentioned and studied, but not practiced.**

**It's My Life**

**Chapter 1**

Two boys were seen on the lawn of a house, throwing punches and kicks at each other. The elder one is Edward Elric. He has long gold-blond hair tied in a braid, is rather muscular, and has gold eyes, the strangest thing about him. No one else has gold eyes except his dad. He is sixteen and has a confident, bad boy attitude. Edward has a temper, and because of that, he gets into a lot of fights at school which is bad because he is a master of martial arts, having been trained since a young age. Despite that he is the best in his class which got him able to skip a grade.

The second boy is Edward's younger brother, Alphonse Elric. He has short chestnut hair, light brown eyes, and is beginning to build some muscle. He is thirteen and a complete opposite of his brother. He isn't as confident as his brother and is the good boy. He has never been in trouble in his life at school. Like his brother, Al is a master of martial arts since he was trained with his brother at a young age and never stopped, but he can't train as much as his brother. His body is weaker than his brother's because of an accident years ago. He is smart and a good student, but not as smart as his brother. His brother had the better mind.

Their father is a famous chemist by the name of Van Hohenheim. Since Ed was ten he has been teaching him Chemistry. When Al turned ten, he started teaching him as well. He spent a lot of time in his lab, but made sure to set an hour or two aside each day for his sons and spent all of Sunday with them.

Five years ago Trisha, the mother of the brothers and wife of Hohenheim, was killed in a car accident. Her sons were in the car with her. Al made it out of the car accident, relatively unharmed. But Ed's right arm and left leg were completely smashed up and had to be amputated. His left arm and right leg were hurt badly but were able to heal. Apparently he had used his body to shield Al in the crash which is why Al escaped mostly fine. But because of that accident, Al's inside got messed up badly. His brother's badly slammed really hard into his stomach and his insides got messed up because of that. It wasn't something that affected him all the time. Just when he overexerted himself, got too stressed out, or ate certain foods did it affect him. He would get really weak and sometimes throw up blood. This caused him to have to go to the hospital. Ed had to be careful sometimes when sparring with him. He had to watch for the signs that his brother was being affected by that…..'illness'.

Hohenheim found an old friend of his to make Ed new limbs because he knows Ed hates being immobile and didn't want to be seen as weak because he is missing limbs. His friend works in creating artificial limbs that connect to the nerves. They are made of steel and are called automail. It was painful and took a while but Ed got them and is used to them by now. No one outside his teachers, servants, maids, and family knew about his automail. Kids tend to mock others about things like this. The year he spent in automail rehabilitation he said he was being taught at home.

Al groaned as his body hit the ground. He looked up into his brother's grinning face and took the outstretched hand to allow his brother to pull him to his feet.

"Nothing broken, right?" Edward asked as he flipped his braid over his shoulder. He cracked his back and neck.

"No." Al replied as he stretched his arms above his head. "I'm not sure what is worse, training with you or chemistry lessons with dad."

The older brother smirked. "Just think, Al. With these chemistry lessons with dad we can breeze through the class when we have to take it at school."

"Brother, he's been teaching us chemistry for years. I think we've learned enough to pass it at this point." Al said with a sigh.

Ed shrugged. He jerked his head in the direction of the house to signal for Al to follow him back to the house. They walked across the lawn to a big house. It was a mansion like house.

When they reached the front door it was opened by the maid who looked at them annoyed for tracking all the dirt, grass, and blood into the house with them. She was the one who had to clean that up.

"How was your spar, boys?" Hohenheim asked when he saw his sons.

"Great. Al is getting much better. He's going to beat me really soon." Edward praised.

Al blushed at the compliment.

"Well, go get cleaned up. And don't forget, school starts tomorrow." Hohenheim told them.

As smart as they were, the brothers still groaned as they trekked up the stairs. School was torturous for them like it was for everyone.

"And Ed," Ed looked back at his father. "No fights this year." His father warned him.

Ed frowned. "I heard you the first hundred times you've told me."

"And you've still gotten into fights. I can't keep getting your principle to let you off with just a detention." Hohenheim replied.

"You're going to let them suspend me?" Edward asked incredulously.

Hohenheim nodded his head. "If you don't get your act together. I won't be able to protect you like this when you leave school so it's time I stopped. You have to learn to grow up. You are sixteen."

Ed felt his mouth drop open in shock. His father has always protected him from getting suspended at school. With all the fights he has been in he should have been expelled by now but his father was influential and had a lot of money. The principle would always let him off or give him a detention because of his father. Without his father's protection he wouldn't make it through the first quarter of the school.

**A/N: Sorry for the short chapter. I'm just setting everything up right now.**

******Please Review!** **  
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	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer: I don't own Fullmetal Alchemist. **

**It's My Life **

**Chapter 2**

Edward looked at the pass in his hand. It was only third period of his first day of school. He hadn't done anything wrong….as far as he knew anyway, and yet here he was one his way to the principal's office.

The secretary smiled at him when he came in. She nodded her head at the principal's door as her way of saying he could go in.

Mr. Schieza looked up when Ed came in. "Hello Edward. Take a seat."

Edward sat down in front of the desk with a confident smirk in place. He may not know why he is here but he is still his confident self. "So, sir, why am I here? I haven't done anything that I know of."

"You aren't in trouble, Edward." Mr. Schieza reached into his desk and pulled out a packet of papers. "I just heard about your father's plan. As much as I hate to admit it, I will miss you attending our school. "

Ed's eyes narrowed as he looked at the principal. "What are you talking about, sir? He doesn't have a plan."

"Well, it's not official yet. But if all is agreed upon, you will be able leaving in October." Mr. Schieza explained. "He's working on getting a new facility in Japan to be his new laboratory. I've spoken to him and he wants to do some experiments. If he can get the facility he will be opening it as a laboratory."

Grinning suddenly, Ed nodded his head. Now he really hoped his dad got this new job, whatever it was so he could move to Japan. He has always wanted to go there.

"I just called you here because if your dad does get the facility you will have to sign this forms out. I figured you would like them now to get them all filled out now so you won't have to it later. If he does get the facility just turn them in. If he doesn't, just get rid of the forms." Mr. Schieza explained sliding the forms across the desk to Edward, who happily took them.

"AL! WE'RE MIGHT BE GOING TO JAPAN!" Ed yelled excitedly when he got home.

Al shook his head to get the ringing out of his ear. "You've been waiting the whole walk home to say that, haven't you?" Ed grinned at him. "But….I CAN'T WAIT EITHER!"

Hohenheim came into the living room with a dazed look. "What's with all the yelling?"

"Dad!" Al scrambled over the back of the couch to get to his father. "Brother's principal and mine told us about the new job you are trying to get in Japan. We really hope you get it."

"Huh?" Hohenheim was completely confused and that was shocking. He was rarely lost.

"Your possible new facility for a lab in Japan." Ed explained.

Hohenheim nodded his head in realization. "Ah, yes, that job. We just have to wait a month until I get an answer."

"Do you really want it?" Al asked.

"Yes, I want to go and visit my old friend in Japan. You guys should remember her, Pinako Rockbell." Hohenheim explained.

"The person who made brother's automail?" Al asked, looking at his brother sadly.

Ed whacked Al. "Don't feel sorry for me. I would lose my limbs for you all over again. I don't regret it, Al and neither should you."

Hohenheim looked at the ceiling thoughtful. By getting that facility, his sons would go to Japan and be starting new at a new school. In Japan he probably wouldn't be able to help his son get out of trouble anymore which would mean he would be sticking to the threat he made yesterday.

"I'll make you deal, Edward. If you can go all of September without getting in trouble once and I do get this facility in Japan, I'll get you a big gift. But this isn't just for you, Ed. If you do get in trouble once then I'm not going to agree to take the facility in Japan anymore." Hohenheim explained.

"What?" Edward and Al screamed.

"He can't stay out of trouble. This isn't fair." Al said annoyed.

Edward frowned. He wanted to object to that, but it was true and he knew it.

"That's the deal." Hohenheim said with a smirk. He liked giving his sons tests like this. It was his way of seeing how they could behave or handle a situation. They always had to deal with a lot.

Edward took a deep breath as he walked into school. He couldn't get in trouble. Just one month with all these annoying people and then he could go to Japan. It was only one month. No fights, no talking back, no disobeying orders, no fun basically. He always had the most fun when he wasn't following the rules.

"Hey shrimp!"

Eye twitching, Edward turned around to face Russell Tringham. The two had been rivals since Edward was bumped up to his year. Russell always managed to piss him off so he would always beat him up which was why his father started paying off the principal.

"Don't call me that, Russell." Edward growled through clenched teeth.

"What? No yelling?" Russell said mockingly.

_Ignore, ignore, ignore, ignore. _Edward kept chanting in his head as he headed to his homeroom. He would not let anyone ruin his chances of going to Japan and getting away from this school. This school drove him insane. People were always teasing him and being rude. That didn't mean that he didn't have a few good friends that he liked.

Russell especially tried to torture Ed a lot. He was the best in his year until Edward came along and stole his thunder. Now Russell competed with Ed for the grades and insulted him daily just to annoy him. Edward wouldn't take that sitting down so he threw insults back; even punches got thrown in there sometimes.

"Have you finally learned to control that temper of yours, shorty?" Russell asked, clapping a hand on Ed's shoulder.

Edward's body tensed up. Everyone at school knew about his personal space issues. He didn't want people touching him. One because it annoyed him greatly. Two because he was afraid people would touch his right arm or left leg and realize that they were metal. The only time someone could touch him was in a fight unless they were family, which is when he didn't care about his personal bubble, and his friends who knew his secret.

The elder Elric pushed Russell's arm off his shoulder. He couldn't ruin this opportunity."Don't you have anything better to do?" Ed snapped at him.

"Not really. School doesn't start for fifteen minutes. Trust me, Elric, I would much rather be in class then be with a pipsqueak." Russell said.

Edward hissed under his breath. "Then go to class."

"Naw. You are so annoyed by me that I think I'll stay here." Russell replied.

"Bastard." Edward mumbled under his breath. He couldn't wait to get to Japan and begin a new life.

**A/N: Please Review!**

**I made Russell a year older than Edward in this instead of him being a year younger than him like in the anime. **


	3. Chapter 3

**Disclaimer: I don't own Fullmetal Alchemist. **

**It's My Life**

**Thanks for reviewing!**

_Japanese is going to be italicized in this chapter so you know when it changes. _

**Chapter 3**

Hand twitching violently, Edward slammed the school doors closed and stomped down the stairs. He shoved his hands in his pockets, kicking angrily at the stones on the ground. Russell had once again insulted his height, intelligence, and age all in one sentence. The jerk. Said jerk was lucky that his one month was up and he was now leaving this school. He wasn't sure how much longer he could have lasted without punching him in the face.

"Awww, what's wrong, Eddie?"

Twitching, Edward spun on his heels to glare at Russel. "What the hell do you want?"

"Can't I just ask what is wrong?" Russel asked in false kindness.

"Go to hell. You don't care." Ed snarled. He paused for a second. "And don't care me Eddie. I hate that name."

"But Eddie..."

Ed went to lunge at Russel but a hand landed on his shoulder and held him back before he could. He whipped around to see Alfons, his best friend from this school. It was strange to have a best friend who had the same name as his little brother though. "Hey Al."

"Calm down, Ed. He's just trying to get you riled up on purpose." Al said, pulling Ed away from Russel. "Today was your last day here, wasn't it?"

Ed gave him a sad smile. "Yeah. We're moving to Japan tomorrow. I'll miss you, Al."

"We can still stay in contact." Al replied with a grin. "And besides your dad makes a lot of money. You can come visit during the summer."

"Or we can fly you out to Japan." Ed said happily.

"Sounds fun." Al replied.

*IT'S*MY*LIFE*

"I'm surprised that you actually managed to stay out of trouble for a whole month." Hohenheim said as he watched Edward and Alphonse lug their suitcases down the stairs and began packing them next to the front door for the servants to take and pack into the car.

Edward stood up straight after putting his suitcase down and rolled his shoulders, and sighed in content when he felt his muscles relax. "Well, I knew this was important to Al and I didn't want to ruin it. I also really want to go to Japan and get away from my school. I'm just really glad you got the facility and this month of behaving wasn't in vain."

"I am really impressed and proud, Edward. I expect this good behavior to continue while you are in Japan. If I hear you've done anything you can expect that I will be cutting your phone off." Hohenheim threatened.

"D-dad…" Edward whined.

"Don't whine, Ed. It's not befitting of you. Just behave." Hohenheim replied. He looked at his watch. "Our plane leaves in an hour. Hurry up and get the rest of your bags down here."

Edward and Alphonse ran up the stairs. At the top of the stairs, they turned right. The first door on the left was opened by Al who ran in and grabbed his last bag. Edward ran into the room next to his brother's and grabbed his last suitcase and black messenger bag.

"Listen boys, you remember Pinako from when she stayed with us for a year to help Ed with his rehabilitation, right?" Hohenheim asked when they were all in the car and their driver drove off.

The brothers nodded their heads.

"She's the one who will be meeting us at the airport in Japan. She lives with her son and his wife. They have a daughter who is Al's age. You and her will be in the same class, Al." Hohenheim said.

"So Al gets to go to school already with a friend who can help him while I have to go in blind." Edward summarized with a frown.

Hohenheim shook his head with a smile. Edward complained about a lot of things but very rarely did he actually care about what he was complaining about.

"Do you know anything about Winry?" Al asked interestedly.

"No. I moved here before she was born." Hohenheim replied. "You'll have to tell me about her sometime." He turned to Edward who was staring out the window. "Edward, the Rockbells are the ones who made your automail. I expect you to be nice to them. Also they are doctors and have to work a lot. I called them a couple days ago to tell them about my new laboratory in Japan and that we were moving there. I have already brought a house for us there. The Rockbells have asked me to ask you to take care of Winry and Alphonse since they have a lot of work with building automail and being doctors. All you have to do is pick them up from school and take them home and drop them off at school in the morning. I'm most likely going to be busy with work as well so you need to do this."

Al frowned. "I don't need him to babysit me. I can take care of myself."

"Al, there will always be someone out there that is better than you. Having someone older with you will keep those bad people away. Even Winry isn't allowed to go home alone yet. Her parents, grandmother, or her friends' parents take her home. Just bear with it, kay?" Hohenheim explained. He didn't mention the fact that he was worried about Al's 'illness'. They never mentioned it but it was always one of the reasons why. It just never needed to be said.

Al sighed. "Fine." He looked at his frowning brother. "I don't mean any offense about it, brother. I just don't want people to think of me as weak anymore. Everyone is always telling you to watch out for me and I'm tired of it."

Ed ruffled Al's hair. "I know little brother. I hated that when I was your age too. People should really stop asking me to do that in front of you….actually they don't need to ask. You're my little brother. I'm always going to look out for you."

Hohenheim smiled brightly. "There is one more thing, Edward. I am having a gift delivered for you to Japan. It will be waiting for you at our new house."

"Why does he get a gift?" Al asked curiously. He wasn't really jealous. His father always did this. He would get them gifts when they did something he was really proud of them for. One time he got a new cell phone when he saved a little girl from almost getting hit by a car. His brother didn't get anything that time because he wasn't the one to jump in front of the car to get the little girl. They didn't always get gifts together.

"For two reasons. One, this gift will be helpful while you are Japan." Ed and Al looked at each other in wonder. What could he have gotten Ed that would be helpful? "And two, I am very proud of you for not getting in trouble for a whole month. I won't take it away if you get in trouble at school, but I will cancel your phone for a month if you get in a lot of trouble, then move on from there." Hohenheim explained calmly, while Ed paled at the thought of losing his phone. That thing was dead useful at times. He couldn't lose it.

"You're an evil man." Edward hissed.

Hohenheim just laughed.

"Do you think he was serious?" Edward asked his brother when they were on the plane. He looked over his seat at his sleeping dad.

Al looked up from buckling his seatbelt. "Who?"

"Who else? Dad." Edward asked.

"This is about him threatening to turn your phone off, isn't it?" Al asked bored.

Ed nodded his head.

"Just stay out of trouble and it will all be fine." Al replied nonchalantly as he opened his book and started reading.

"You're not helping." Edward said.

Al rolled his eyes, but didn't look up at his brother. "I'm reading, brother. Please do something besides bothering me. It's going to be a long ride."

Sighing, Edward put his seat back and grabbed his pillow. "Night Al."

"Night brother." Al replied.

"Don't stay up long. Dad would get mad at me if I didn't make sure you got enough sleep." Edward mumbled tiredly as his eyes slide shut.

FLUMP.

"Mmfp." Edward mumbled.

"I can't understand you brother." Al replied while chuckled.

Edward ripped the pillow off his face and glared at his brother. "Why did you hit me with a pillow?"

"You needed to wake up." Al said indifferently with a shrug.

"Why did you have to wake me?" Edward whined, tossing the pillow at his brother's face.

A shocked sound escaped Al when the pillow hit him. It dropped down to his lap. "You've been asleep for hours. The stewardess is bringing lunch soon. I ordered for you."

"What about breakfast?" Ed asked.

"You slept through it." Hohenheim replied from behind them, amusement in his voice at his sons.

Edward sighed and stared out the window of the plane, watching the sky and clouds moving passed the window. "This is going to be a long flight."

*IT'S*MY*LIFE*

Hohenheim, Edward and Alphonse looked around the airport for the short old lady that they remembered from years ago.

"Do you see her anyway, Ed?" Al asked.

"How can I when she's so short?" Edward retorted.

Al sighed. "Brother, you don't have to be so rude. You don't like it when people call you short so you shouldn't call others short."

"That's because I'm not short. I am over five feet tall, damn it. Pinako is like three feet tall or something." Edward replied.

Hohenheim shook his head at his sons.

"_It's been a long time, boys._"

Al looked behind him to see Pinako standing there with a pipe in her mouth like always. "_Hello Pinako. It's nice to see you again._"

Edward nodded his head at her.

"_Follow me. My son is waiting outside with his car._" Pinako said.

Al held his hand out. "_It's nice to meet you, Dr. Rockbell._"

Urey grasped Al's hand. "_Hello Alphonse, you are Alphonse, right?_"

"_Yes._" Al replied.

Ed held his left hand out. "_Edward. Nice to meet you, sir._"

Urey chuckled. "_And your father said you didn't have any manners._"

"_Let me restate my statement then. He has manners. He just rarely uses them._" Hohenheim said.

"_Hello Van. It's been a while._" Urey shook Hohenheim's hand."_Well, let's get going. My daughter can't wait to meet you two._" He looked at Ed and Al as he said this. "_She is at your new house, waiting for you so she can help you with the rest of the luggage that arrived here a few days ago._"

"_If you don't mind, what is the name of our new school that we will be attending? I kind of forgot._" Al asked.

"_That's alright. It is called Amestris Junior,_" He nodded at Al. "_Senior,_" He nodded at Ed. "_High School. We will passing the schools on the way to your house so you can see where they are so you will know for Monday._" Urey said.

"_Today is Saturday, right?_" Edward asked.

Urey nodded his head.

Edward looked up at Amestris Senior High School when they passed it. It looked like a nice school. From what he could tell as they drove passed it, it had three or four floors to it. He also caught a glimpse of a track field as they drove passed, but only a glimpse.

Urey pulled into the driveway of another mansion. Their father always seemed to buy mansions to live in. A young girl with long blonde hair tied in a ponytail sat in the grass with a woman that was obviously her mother. She wore a blue knee length skirt and yellow tang top.

"_Is that Winry?_" Al asked when he noticed her.

"_Yes, it is._" Urey said as he opened his door. "_Winry, we're back._"

Winry looked up from the book she was studying from. She happily put it down and ran over to the car. "_Hello, I'm Winry._" She said as soon as she reached Al and held a hand out.

Blushing, Al took her hand. "_Alphonse. I'm supposed to be in your year._"

"_I know._" She turned to Ed and held her hand out. "_That would make you Edward._"

"_Correct. It's nice to meet you, Winry, right Al?_" Ed smirked at his brother's red face.

Al stomped his foot onto Ed's flesh foot, causing his brother to hiss in pain.

"_Hey Ed, don't you have automail made by my family?_" Winry asked curiously.

"_Yeah, I do._" Ed replied, glaring at his smirking brother.

Winry's eyes lit up. "_How is it? Is everything working okay? If it isn't I can check over it for you._"

"_Winry loves automail as much as we do._" Urey explained to Ed's bewildered look. "_Before we take your stuff inside, your father did tell you about a gift for you, right?_"

Ed nodded his head. Hohenheim smiled. He was sure his son would love the gift.

"_I think you're going to really like this gift. I wish my father brought something like this for me when I was your age._" Urey said, pulling a keychain with three keys on it out of his pocket. He motioned to the car on the other side of his car.

Ed walked around Urey's car and stopped in front of a red Nissan 300ZX Turbo car with tinted windows. "No way." He whispered in German. "He brought me a car!"

"_You're one lucky kid._" Urey said as he handed the keychain to Ed. "_One key is for the car, one is to unlock the car, and the other is a key to your house._"

"_I don't need you getting locked out. I wanted you to have to car so you had some way of getting around. You can drive it to school. The parking lot for the school is right across the road. If you drive you have to take Winry and Al to school and pick them up._" Hohenheim explained to his son.

"_We get to ride in that?_" Al asked excitedly. "_Sweet!_"

Winry grinned. "_This is so awesome._"

"_It is yours so you can use it whenever you want._" Urey said. "_Just make sure that Al and Winry don't sit in the front. They are much too young to sit there._"

Edward nodded his head and unlocked the car. He climbed inside and looked around. There were four leather seats in total. Two in the back and two in the front. Cup holders in the back and front between the seats. There was even a stereo, everything for the perfect ride. This was going to be awesome to drive. He couldn't wait to drive it.

**A/N: Please Review! **


	4. Chapter 4

**Disclaimer: I don't own Fullmetal Alchemist. **

**It's My Life**

I'm going to be going back and forth between German and Japanese. When I switch languages German will be in **bold **and Japanese will be in _italics,_ for at least the first line of the change_._

"Talking"

Thinking 

**Chapter 4**

After getting all their luggage into their house, the boys left to walk to the Rockbells to visit them and find out where they lived so Ed knew where to go to pick Winry up in the morning. They left the servants and maids to unpack all the boxes.

The Rockbells, it turned out, were actually really nice people. They made sure that the boys were happy and the adults spoke German which was helpful to the kids when a word came up that they couldn't translate. It was especially difficult for Winry since she only spoke Japanese. They tried to speak just Japanese so Ed and Al could get used to always speaking it.

Winry, the boys soon discovered, absolutely loved automail. Some day she wanted to be a famous automail mechanic. Her best friend, Paninya, has two automail legs made by Dominic, the man she lived with since her family was killed in a train accident when she was younger. She and Paninya have been friends for years.

When Winry saw that Ed's automail was sticking and squeaking she threw a fit at him for not taking care of it. After threatening to hit him with a wrench and Ed threatening to not let her ride in his car if she did, Winry polished, oiled, and checked over everything to make sure it was alright and that there was no rust in his automail. Then came a huge lecture about taking care of his arm and leg. Honestly, the girl was completely insane when it came to automail.

"**I don't see how you can like her, Al**." Ed said.

Al blinked in confusion. "You like Winry to, brother. She is nice."

Ed snickered. "No, I mean your crush on her. I saw you blush when you saw her for the first time. I really don't get how you can have a crush on someone you just met."

"Shut up. I don't like her that way." Al said with a blush.

Grinning, Ed poked his brother's flaming cheek. "The blush says otherwise."

Al knocked his brother's hand away. "You don't know anything."

"Uh-huh."

The conversation ended because Winry came into the living room with a box. "_Hey guys, are you ready for school tomorrow_?"

Al nodded his head with a nervous smile.

"Don't be nervous, Al. Everyone will like you." Winry reassured. "Don't forget, we have uniforms at my school."

Ed groaned at the reminder. That was what he didn't like about this school. The uniforms. "Where are they?"

Winry laughed. "A problem, Ed. When your dad contacted the school to get everything set up for you two, the secretary at each school was supposed to order your uniforms for you guys. Your dad had them sent here since you haven't arrived in Japan yet." She handed the box in her hands to Al. "Al's is in this box, but yours never arrived. My dad contacted the Senior High School earlier today about it. The secretary there messed up apparently and didn't order your uniform. You have to wear regular clothes until it arrives."

Al laughed. "Everything always happens to brother…wait, you want Ed to wear his normal clothes to school? Are you insane? Have you seen the way he dresses? It's all dark."

"What's wrong with it?" Ed asked offended.

"It's too dark." Winry and Al yelled.

"I have to make up for all the gold." Ed motioned to his gold hair and eyes. "Anyway, it's getting late. So," He grabbed Al's arm and dragged him to the door. "It's time to leave Al."

Winry turned to Al before they left. "This is brother for you." Was all Al said to her look before he was dragged outside.

*It's My Life*

Al looked at his brother's outfit in shock. He knew his brother liked wearing black but this was too much. Black pants, black shirt, black jacket clipped at the top with a silver clipping, and black combat boots? [1] Only his brother. Only his brother could actually go to school like that.

"Can't you wear something besides black?" Al asked pleadingly.

Ed pointed to his waist at his wide brown belt. "Brown belt and white gloves." He pulled his gloves out of his pocket and slipped them on.

"Not really what I meant." Al said blandly.

Ed ignored him as he looked at his silver flip phone for the time. "We have to leave now so I won't be late."

Al quickly cleaned up the table, dropping his dishes in the sink, and then ran upstairs to grab his backpack. Ed didn't understand why he didn't just bring it downstairs when he came for breakfast. He grabbed his black messenger bag by the door and waited for his little brother to return.

Once he was back he immediately ushered the younger boy outside. He really wanted to drive his car. He also had to get to school so he could find the office. But mostly he just wanted to drive his car. He wanted to feel how it ran.

Ed unlocked the car and reached behind the seat, searching for the latch that would bend his seat forward so the younger teenager could get in the back.

"I can't believe Dad actually got you a car. It was just a few months ago that he refused completely to get you one." Al said as he dropped his backpack on his lap.

"But we had a driver in Germany so I didn't really need a car. Our driver isn't here with us so we do need it." Ed said as he threw his messenger bag in the passenger's seat and climbed in. He looked at the back seats. "Seatbelt on?"

"Yes brother." Al said with a roll of his eyes. His brother always asked him that when he was driving.

The sound of the engine was music to Ed's ears. It's been a while since he's driven. He didn't realize how much he missed it. He turned his stereo on before throwing the car into reverse and pulling out of the driveway. The car was quickly thrown into drive and Ed was off speeding down the road.

"Runs like a gem, so smooth." Ed said.

"You're going a little fast, brother." Al said, gripping the edges of the seats.

Ed shrugged, but slowed down some for his brother's benefit.

The drive to Winry's was quick. It was only a five minute drive. She was waiting in the driveway for them since Al texted her to let her know that they were on the way. Winry opened the passenger's door and pushed the seat forward like Ed did to get in the back.

"Seatbelt on, Winry?" Ed asked.

Al rolled his eyes again.

"Just checking. I have a feeling Dr. Rockbell would kill me if his daughter wasn't completely safe with me." Ed said to his brother's eye roll.

Winry leaned over to Al. "Your brother does know how to drive, right?"

"Yeah." Al said as Ed turned the car on again. "He just has a tendency to go faster than he should. He stays slow for me though. And he has been going slower the last few times he's driven. He's becoming more responsible, I think."

When they reached the Junior High School, Ed pulled up to the curve and got out of the car so Al and Winry could get out. "I'll see you guys after school."

"Actually Ed, I have a meeting after school. Al can come with me to it. I'll call you when it is over to come pick us up." Winry explained.

"Okay." Ed said as he climbed back into the car. "See ya, Al, Winry."

Ed looked at his phone to check the time. Class began at eight. It was seven thirty now. The Senior High School was a five minute drive from the Junior High School. This was good because now he could get a tour of the school so he had an idea of where to go.

When he got to the student parking lot at the Senior High School he parked his car as far back as he could. He didn't want it to be out in the open too much because he didn't want the crazy teenagers seeing his car and messing with it.

Ed looked around the school with a lost look. How was he supposed to find the office? Shrugging, he just started up the first staircase he found. He would find the office eventually.

And by eventually, he meant easily. The office was right in front of the stairs at the top of the staircase he got on.

"Excuse me?" Ed asked when he came in.

The secretary looked up when she heard Ed. The young boy felt himself gasp. She looked similar to his mother. "Yes?"

Ed rubbed his throat. "I'm Edward Elric, the new student from Germany."

The woman smiled in amusement. "Lost?"

Ed nodded his head. "Do you know someone by the name of Trisha Elric?"

"Sorry, no, why?" She asked.

"Sorry, it's just that you look just like her." Ed replied.

"Well, I'm not her. My name is Juliet Douglas." Juliet said, pushing herself away from her desk. "Bradley-san is in his office. You may go talk to him." She led him to the door and knocked on it.

"Come in."

Juliet opened the door. She closed it behind Ed. "Sir, Edward Elric is here."

Edward's calculating eyes fell on Bradley. He had black hair and mustache. An eye patch was covering his left eye. His other eye was blue. He wore a white dress shirt with black suit jacket that was resting on the back of his chair. Bradley looked generally pleasant and smiled at Ed when he came in.

"Good morning, Mr. Elric. It is nice to meet you." Bradley said.

Ed looked at the nameplate on Bradley's desk. It read King Bradley. Who names their son King? "Good morning, sir."

"I hope you are ready to start classes."

"I am, sir. I just need a tour of the school and my schedule." Edward replied.

Bradley nodded his head. "Of course." He looked at Ed closely. "But where is your uniform?"

"I'm sorry, Bradley-san. That is my fault. I forgot to order his uniform." Juliet interrupted.

"Oh, then you'll just wear your regular clothes until it arrives." Bradley said cheerfully.

Ed smirked. This guy seemed nice enough. Hopefully he could get away with some things with him as his principal.

"Now, Douglas-san has your schedule at her desk. She'll give you a quick tour of the school." Bradley said.

"Okay, thank you, sir." Edward replied, bowing out of respect to him.

**Amestris Senior High School Schedule  
>Edward Elric<br>Locker #254, combination: 25-42-07  
>Homeroom <strong>(8:00-8:25)- Izumi Curtis-sensei, Room 302**  
>Period 1 <strong>(8:30-9:15)- Trigonometry, Tim Marcoh-sensei, Room 205**  
>Period 2 <strong>(9:20-10:05)- Advanced Art, Garfiel-sensei, Room 108**  
>Period 3 <strong>(10:10-10:55)- World Studies, Knox-sensei, Room 201**  
>Period 4 <strong>(11:00-11:45)- Physical Education, Scar-sensei, Gym**  
>Period 5 <strong>(11:50-12:30)- Lunch, Cafeteria **  
>Period 6 <strong>(12:35-1:20)- Honors Chemistry, Izumi Curtis-sensei, Room 302**  
>Period 7 <strong>(1:25-2:10)- Study Hall, Shou Tucker-sensei, Room 400 **  
>Period 8 <strong>(2:15-3:00)- Academic English, Sheska-sensei, Room 305

Edward returned to the office with Douglas-san after the tour of the school. She showed him his locket first then showed him the floors. The first floor had the rooms with the one hundreds. The second floor was the two hundreds, third was the three hundreds, and the fourth was the four hundreds. She also showed him where the gym, cafeteria, and library were.

"Thank for the tour, Douglas-san." Edward said as he looked at the clock to see it was eight o'clock. He was late to class.

"It was no problem, Mr. Elric." Juliet said as she pulled out a pass. She quickly wrote down the time, excuse, and her signature, and handed it to Ed. "This will get you into class without getting in trouble. I'm sorry that you are late."

"It's only homeroom." Ed said with a shrug.

*It's My Life*

"Listen." Izumi growled as she slammed her hand on her desk.

The students looked up from their conversations to look at their teacher. She was very scary when she was mad so they made sure to always listen to her.

"A new student from Germany will be joining our class today. I want all of you to be nice and respectful to him as he is younger than you since he skipped a grade and is new here. Help him out if he needs it." Izumi said.

A boy in the back with blond hair and blue eyes rolled his eyes. His shoulders were stocky from working out often. A sucker was in his mouth. "Just what we need. A brainiac in our class." He tugged at his uniform sleeve. His uniform consisted of black dress pants, a white dress shirt, a dark blue suit jacket, a black tie, and polished black dress shoes.

A girl sitting at a desk next to him turned away from her friends and frowned at him. She wore a blue knee length skirt, white dress shirt, dark blue suit jacket, black tie, and white shoes. "You don't have to be rude, Jean."

"Whatever, Riza." Jean replied, stretching his arm behind his head. "Why did they wait a month into the school year to change schools anyway?"

"Who knows? And who cares?" The boy in front of Jean said as he turned around in his seat. He jerked his head to the side so his black bangs would move out of his face. Like Jean, he had a stocky build from training. He shot a charming smile at Riza and her friends. "Hello Riza." He said smoothly.

"Roy." Riza replied unfazed. "I've been friends with you for years. You should know by now that you can't charm me."

"I have to keep trying." Roy replied.

"You might want to snap lover boy there out of it." Riza said, nodding her head at the boy next to Roy. He had spiky black hair with a tint of green in it and hazel eyes with glasses.

Roy looked where his friend was looking. He was looking at one of Riza's friends. She had light brown hair that reached her shoulders and brilliant green eyes. Sighing, he hit his best friend's shoulder. "Stop staring, Maes. You're going to scare Gracia away before you can even get a date with her."

Maes looked at his friend with a sigh. "I can't help it. She's so pretty."

"Then just as…." Roy stopped when he heard the classroom door slammed shut. He looked around to see what was going on. A boy a few inches shorter than someone his age should be with gold hair and eyes walked confidentially into the room and up to Curtis-sensei. He looked at the boy's outfit and frowned. It wasn't the uniform so he couldn't be a student but he did have a school bag. "I wonder who that is."

"The new student." The boy next to Jean said calmly. He had black and white hair. He had a little muscle from training a few times with his friends but he preferred not to work out so he wasn't as strong as his friends.

Roy watched as Curtis-sensei and the possible new student talked quietly at the teacher's desk. "He sure wears a lot of black."

"Must be his favorite color." Maes said. He stretched his tensed muscles. "Is there a martial arts club meeting today? I need a spar." Like his friends he was a fighter. They joined the martial arts club in their third year of Junior High School. It was actually how Roy and him met most of their friends that they have now.

"Yeah." Roy said. He clenched his fist and rolled his wrist. "Are you really ready for another beating from me?"

Maes scoffed. "You wish."

"ATTENTION." Izumi yelled.

The boy next to Izumi jumped a little in surprise and turned wide eyes to Izumi. Roy snickered at his reaction, causing Riza to aim a kick at him.

Izumi paid no attention to Ed jumping. "This is Edward Elric, the new student from Germany. Each of you will stand up and say your name so he knows who you are. Starting with you." She pointed to the boy in the corner of the first row.

He jumped to his feet. "Denny Brosh." He said before sitting down.

"Lyra Crown."

"Martel Cran."

"Roa Leny."

"Harris Mange."

"Charlie Ness."

"Frank Archer."

"Solf Kimberly."

"Envy Ouroboros."

Is that a boy or girl? I'll go with boy for now. He and his friends look like bad kids. Avoid them. Edward thought. He may get in a lot of trouble, but he didn't want to be a really bad kid. He just got in a lot of fights. Edward stared at him. But still, Envy. Envy? Who the hell named their son Envy? It is as bad as naming their son King.

"Harris Lang."

"Heathcliffe Arbor."

"Maes Hughes."

Too overly cheerful.Ed thought as he looked at the grinning boy.

"Roy Mustang."

He looks like a cocky bastard. Ed thought.

"Gracia Nalen."

Sounds nice.

"Maria Ross."

"Rebecca Catalina."

"Riza Hawkeye."

She looks too serious. Ed thought. A complete opposite of that Maes guy.

"Vato Falman."

Monotone, much?

"Jean Havoc."

He doesn't look happy to see me.

"Heymans Breda."

"Kain Fuery."

"Alex Louis Armstrong. It is wonderful to have you attend our school, Edward Elric."

Edward stared at the big man who was Alex. He had never seen any teenager that size. Why the hell is there a giant at this school?

"Curtis-sensei, question, why isn't he wearing the uniform?" Heymans asked curiously.

Izumi looked at Ed, waiting for him to answer. When Ed looked back at her with a raised brow, the two had a staring contest. "Douglas-san messed up and never ordered his uniform for him so he has to wear regular clothes for a few days." Izumi said when she got bored of the staring contest.

Edward pulled his hands out of his pockets so he could readjust his messenger bag strap. He had his bag filled with notebooks, pencils, and papers so it was heavy.

"Mr. Elric, you can't wear gloves in school." Izumi said.

Frowning, Ed turned to his teacher. He pulled the note out from his personal doctor and handed it to her. It was a note saying that he had permission to wear them without saying why.

Frowning, Izumi looked at the students. "Ms. Hawkeye."

Riza stood up. "Yes ma'am?"

"Please help Mr. Elric today whenever he needs it." Izumi said.

"Yes ma'am."

"Can I sit down?" Ed asked.

Izumi nodded her head.

Edward walked past the row of double desks, head held high. He did feel nervous with all their eyes on him. Despite how he acted, he did get nervous sometimes. It was especially bad when he was at a new school and knew absolutely no one. It was the same thing when he skipped a grade a few years ago. But he built a mask and this mask hid the fact that he was nervous. He was still human after all so he did have feelings.

The walk to the last double desk that was empty in the back of the room felt like it took forever to get to. He dropped his messenger bag onto the desk and sat down in the chair closest to the window. He rested his head in his hand as he stared out the window. Cars were zooming passed on the road, heading to work or somewhere else the driver needed to get to.

"What the hell kind of nerd is he?" Jean hissed at his friends. "No nerd dresses like that."

"Stop being mean." Riza growled at him.

Jean shrugged.

"Do you guys want to go get some coffee after martial arts today?" Roy asked.

"Sounds like a plan." Jean replied.

Roy looked at Riza, Maria, Gracia, and Rebecca. "Would you ladies care to join us in our expedition to get coffee later?"

"No thanks. In case you've forgotten, Roy, we have a chemistry test tomorrow. You know how tough Curtis-sensei is. We need all the study time we can get." Maria replied.

"You're going to spend the whole night studying? How boring." Roy scoffed, resting his head in his hand in his normal uncaring look that made him look cool.

Riza rolled her eyes. "You should too, Roy. I know you are having trouble in there to. What was it you got on your last test in there? Yeah, I believe it was an eighty-eight out of one hundred."

"And if Roy is getting grades like that, think about the rest of us. We're never going to pass Chemistry at this rate." Maes whined.

"That new kid has no idea of what he's just gotten himself into." Heymans said with a smirk.

"Isn't that a little mean? He's new here and you guys are relishing in the fact that he's going to have trouble here." Gracia said with a frown.

Fuery looked over at Ed and shrugged. "I think he'll be fine. He did skip a grade after all. He has to be smart. So let's not worry about him."

"Germany and Japan probably have different school standards which is why he was able to skip a grade so he could have trouble here." Falman said. "Coffee after martial arts sounds nice."

"So you're coming to the meeting today? You hardly ever come." Roy replied.

Falman shrugged. "I need some more training."

"I say you need a lot of training. I mean Maes can beat you." Roy said with a smirk, earning a nasty glare from Maes. "If you can't handle the truth…."

Maes pushed Roy out of his chair.

"What are you doing back there?" Izumi snapped.

"Nothing ma'am." Roy and Maes replied.

Izumi narrowed her eyes at them, but didn't reply as she turned to Ed. "Elric!"

Edward slowly turned his head to look at her. "Yes?"

"Come here. I forgot to give you your books." Izumi said.

Edward slowly pushed himself away from his desk and walked down to her desk.

Izumi picked up a stack of eight heavy books off her desk and dropped them in Ed's arms. "There are two math books, two Chemistry books, and two English books. You are to take both of them to your class all the time along with," Izumi picked up a literature book. "Sheska-san is having her English class read this book. It is a literature class as well as an English class." She threw the book on top of the book pile in Ed's arms.

"Thanks." Ed grunted. It was only thanks to his years of training that enabled him to stay standing up with the nine books in his hands. Since he was distracted by all the books in his hands and getting back to his desk, he missed the shocked, but approving look of Izumi.

"He's not a weak nerd. That much is obvious." Jean said.

"Still a nerd though." Heymans added.

Ed dropped his books on his desk and took his schedule out to see what books he would need before lunch. He needed his two math books, his art book, and his World Studies books. He shoved those four books into his bag. After homeroom he would put the rest of his books in his locker. Luckily his locker was right outside this classroom so he didn't have to go all over the place to get to it then get to his class.

As the kids filed out of the class when homeroom ended, Ed headed off to his locker. The students pretty much ignored him as he stuffed his books he didn't need in his locker.

"Elric."

Ed slammed his locker shut, spun the lock, and turned to the voice to see Riza Hawkeye with three of her friends. "Hawkeye?"

"Do you need help to your next class?" Riza asked.

"No." Ed replied. He nodded his head at her and walked away.

"Well, that was rude. You keep telling Jean not to be rude to him and yet he's being rude to you." Rebecca said annoyed.

Riza shrugged. "I have to get to Trigonometry."

"Kay. See ya, Riza." Gracia said as she, Maria, and Rebecca headed to Algebra two.

Ed walked up to the teacher's desk when he got to his next class.

The teacher looked up at him. He had black hair that was turning gray. Wrinkles were appearing on his face showing that he was getting old. "Hello, young man. Who would you be?"

Ed smiled politely. He did learn some manners. He needed them when he had such a rich and influential father. With a father like that there were quite a few fancy dinners he needed to be at. Those were so annoying. "I'm Edward Elric. I'm the new student. You are Marcoh-sensei, right?"

"That would be right." Marcoh said nicely. "I guess you would like a seat, right?"

Ed nodded his head.

Marcoh pulled out a seating chart and looked over it. As he was doing that, Ed looked at the students who were in the class. He recognized a few people from his homeroom like Roy, Riza, Vato, Heymans, Heathcliffe, and Alex. There was a girl in the class with long blonde hair and blue eyes that looked similar to Alex. Did he have a sibling?

"Mr. Elric, you can sit in the seat next to Ms. Armstrong." Marcoh said when Ed looked back at him.

Ed's eyes flashed with confusion. He had a guess of who Ms. Armstrong was, but he couldn't be sure.

Marcoh chuckled when he realized the problem. "Ms. Armstrong, raise your hand please."

The girl who Ed thought was a sibling to Alex raised her hand. As Ed walked towards the desk he saw that she didn't look like a particular pleasing person. Note, avoid her.

"Olivier Mira Armstrong." She greeted when he sat down. "How old are you? You looked too young to be in this class."

"Sixteen." Ed said through gritted teeth.

Olivier raised a brow. "Year two student in this class?"

"Year three." Ed asked.

Olivier noticed Ed look at Alex and back at her with a raised brow. "I'm in Year four. I'm Alex's older sister."

Shrugging, Ed turned to face the front of the class as Marcoh began the lecture. He didn't really ask about her and Alex's relation. The rest of the class was spent taking notes on everything that Marcoh said. Ed could tell that this was going to be a hard class, but was confident that he could handle it.

After math Ed headed to Advanced Art. He soon discovered that Garfiel-sensei was an insane, effeminate teacher. He had to make sure to avoid him at all times. The man was creepy.

Next was World Studies. Knox-sensei seemed cool enough. He was of mix cultures which made him a much better teacher for teaching World Studies. He was completely unbiased. When Ed told him about having to wear gloves for a specific reason that he didn't want to discuss, he was completely understanding and did not pry which made Ed like him so much more.

Nothing interesting really happened until he got to gym. His gym teacher, Scar-sensei, was really religious he soon found out and looked to be trained as a fighter.

"Who are you?" Scar asked when he noticed Ed standing to the side of the track field. The gym class was taking place outside.

"Edward Elric, new student." Ed replied.

"I wish I would be informed of new students coming to my class so I can be prepared and have a uniform for you. I'll get you one as soon as possible." Scar eyed Ed's clothes. "It seems you don't have either uniform. Just wear those clothes for gym for now."

Ed nodded his head and deposited his messenger bag on the bleachers. He looked around the class to see it was gender mixed. He expected this school to divide its students up by gender for gym, but he guessed he was wrong. Both Armstrongs, Roy, Riza, Jean, Maria, and a few others he met earlier were in this class.

"You just in time. We are starting baseball this month." Scar said.

"Great." Ed mumbled.

Scar grabbed the baseball off the ground and threw it hard at Ed, who eyes widened and he caught it in his hand.

"Are you crazy?" Ed yelled.

"You caught it. I don't really care that you are wearing gloves even if it is against the rules. Just get to the pitcher's mound." Scar replied as he turned to the rest of the students. "The rest of you will be divided into two teams. Elric over there will be the pitcher for both teams."

"Fun." Ed mumbled to himself as he tossed the ball into the air and caught it while Scar-sensei divided the teams.

Roy, Riza, Jean, Maria, Rebecca, Maes, Denny, Frank, Lyra, and Roa, were on one team. Olivier, Vato, Gracia, Heymans, Kain, someone named Miles, Envy, Solf, Alex, Martel, and someone named Henschel made up the second team.

"Pick team names." Scar said as he walked towards Ed. "Listen, Elric, I want you to throw as hard as you can at them. Don't go easy on any of them. You do and I will deduct points from your grade. I want them to toughen up."

Ed chuckled nervously and nodded his head. This guy was crazy. Why were there so many crazy teachers in this school?

"Ready when you are, shorty!"

Ed felt his eye twitch and looked at Roy who was holding a bat and waiting for him to pitch. "Shorty?" He growled under his breath. This guy was…he was just lucky that he remembered his dad's threat of taking his phone away.

"What? Are you afraid that you can't pitch high enough?" Roy called to him.

Calm down, calm down. Ed thought. He rolled the ball over in his hand as he took a calming breath. He threw the ball as hard as he could directly at Roy.

Eyes wide, Roy ducked to the ground.

Jean let out a low whistle. "Wow, he has a strong arm. Did you see how fast that ball went?"

"Maybe he is less of a nerd than we thought." Maes said with a grin.

"No, he's still a nerd. He just got lucky is all." Jean replied with crossed arms. He would not take back what he said about him.

**A/N: [1] I just really love that outfit. **

**This is the way Japanese school works. The junior high school level is for twelve to fifteen year olds. The senior high school level is fifteen to eighteen year olds. So each school has four years. Al is in year 2 of the junior high school and Ed is in year 3 of senior high school because he skipped a grade.**

**The only reason why all the main characters for this story are in the same homeroom is because I couldn't think of enough characters from the show to put in that class who wouldn't be important. I mean there were others that could be in there, but I need to save some of the characters to be Al's friends. This is the basic plan: the military soldiers from FMA are in Ed's year. The characters not in the military are in Al's year. Really in real life I know that not all of the friends would be in the same homeroom. Don't question it. **

**Knox is of mixed races in this story because I was going to use a different person for the World Studies part but I wanted that person to be a student and Knox was the only person I could think of to replace him. I still want the World Studies teacher to be different races so I just kept it that way. **

**Please Review!**


	5. Chapter 5

**Disclaimer: I don't own Fullmetal Alchemist or the song 'It's My Life' by Bon Jovi. **

**A/N: I'm sorry this took so long, but I've been busy. Also, my updates might start taking longer like this one. These last few weeks have been busy. But now my updates might take longer because I got a summer job. **

**It's My Life**

I'm going to be going back and forth between German and Japanese. When I switch languages German will be in **bold **and Japanese will be in _italics,_ for at least the first line of the change_._

"Talking"

Thinking 

**Chapter 5**

Edward sat at a table by himself with his lunch in front of him. He pushed the food around with a fork as he stared idly around the cafeteria. Gym had just ended and he had to run out of there so he could keep living. The students looked ready to kill him because of how hard he was pitching. He had even knocked one of the students out by hitting him in the head with the ball. He felt horrible about that. He would have to apologize the next time he saw him.

Which would be now.

Kain Fuery was sitting with his friends a few tables away. He was holding an ice pack to his head that he most likely got from the nurse. Ed winced when he saw the big bruising bump on Fuery's head. Scar had said that it would make him stronger in the end. Sadly, Ed had to disagree. Fuery didn't really look like a strong kid.

Ed kept watching the group until Fuery got up to throw his food away.

Sighing, Ed pushed himself away from the table and walked towards the garbage cans. He dumped his tray in the garbage and turned to Fuery, who was walking away but stopped when Ed grabbed his arm. "Fuery."

Fuery stopped and looked back at him. "Elric."

"Look, I'm….." Ed paused. He was not one to apologize. It was really hard for him to do. "I'm s..sorry about hitting you in the head."

Fuery gave a small smile. "It's alright. I know you didn't mean to hit me in the head. You didn't, did you?"

"Hell no. I have no grudge against you….yet." Ed replied.

"Yet?" Fuery groaned.

Ed shrugged. "Don't call me short and stay out of my way and we'll have no problem, Fuery."

"Easy enough, done." Fuery said.

Nodding his head, Ed walked back to his isolated table and sat down. He threw his feet onto the table, leaned back on his chair so two legs were in the air, and stared at the ceiling.

"What was that about?" Jean asked when Kain sat back down.

"He was apologizing for hitting me." Kain explained.

Riza smiled. "He seems like a good kid."

"If you even suggest that we try to make friends with him….." Jean growled.

Gracia frowned. "Come on, he's new here and doesn't know anyone."

"In case you haven't noticed, he's not exactly trying to make friends." Heymans pointed out, jerking his head in Ed's direction. "He's been pushing people who have been trying to talk to him away all day. And when he does talk to someone he barely says anything."

"The Homunculi." Maes hissed.

"What?" Roy growled.

The Homunculi were the bad kids of the school. They were the biggest bullies ever. They picked on everyone. No one was safe from them. Anyone that tried to stick up to them ended up getting sent to the hospital. Worse yet was that no one could prove it was them so they never got in trouble. Not only were they bullies but they were the rival martial arts team to the martial arts team that Roy and his friends were on, the Alchemists.

Roy looked around to see Envy, his sister Lust and brother Greed, Archer, Kimberly, Martel, and Roa approaching Elric. "Shit. I know we don't like him, but we can't just sit around and watch."

Jean grabbed Roy's arm. "Think for a moment, will you? What do you think you can do?"

"What I always do with them? Punch them in the face." Roy said, pulling his arm free.

"And get suspended? Curtis-sensei will kill you if that happens again." Maes said, grabbing his friend's arm. "And possibly kick you off the team. She said that she would if you got in any more trouble."

"So you're content with letting them hurt someone else?" Roy hissed.

Maes frowned. "Of course not. Someone needs to push them down a few steps. They think they rule this school, but you've…..we've been trying for years. The only thing they haven't got is being president of the student council. Olivier has that this year."

"Hopefully I can become the president for next year." Roy said.

CLANG!

Everyone looked over at the Homunculi and Ed. The chair Ed was sitting on lay knocked over on the ground and Ed was standing with clenched fists, eyes boring into Envy's.

"Oh, it's seems I made that pipsqueak mad." Envy sneered.

Ed's eye twitched. Remember the threat, remember it. 

"What? Are you all bark and no bite?" Envy said.

"Damn it. The only reason you are still standing is because I promised my dad I would stay out of trouble here. I can't be getting in anymore trouble." Ed growled. "So I would count your lucky stars if I were you." He stomped angrily away.

"Count my lucky stars? Yeah right, like someone as small as him could be a threat to me." Envy sneered.

The new student paused for a moment when he heard Envy. Not only did the bastard call him small, but he was saying he was weak. But he had to remember that he couldn't get in trouble so he left the cafeteria before Envy could make him angrier.

"What do you think about that, Roy?" Riza asked.

"He's not afraid of them, but that might be because he hasn't seen what they do. He really has no idea of what he is dealing with." Roy said.

"Should I explain it to him so he has a head up of what this school is like?" Riza asked, already getting ready to stand up.

Roy shook his head. "Not yet."

Ed stomped angrily down the hallway to his next class which was Chemistry with Curtis-sensei. He was going to be ten minutes early, but he didn't care. Just as long as Envy wasn't in his class he would be fine.

Izumi looked up when her classroom door was slammed open. "Elric, what are you doing here?"

"This is my next class." Ed growled.

"Class doesn't start for ten minutes." Izumi said as she pushed herself away from her desk and moved over to Ed. "Is something wrong?"

The elder Elric brother looked up at her with narrowed eyes, trying to decided whether he wanted to talk to her or not. He wasn't one to talk about his life or his problems to people. But he needed to rant. He hasn't been able to let his temper loose all day.

"Envy! He kept calling me short and insulting me in the lunchroom with the rest of his little gang of friends throwing in their own insults." Ed growled. "And I couldn't do a damn thing about it because my dad said if I got in trouble here he would take my phone away then move from there for punishments. So I can't fight here or let my anger out in any way possible and it is irritating me. I just want to punch him." Edward seethed.

"That sounds about right." Izumi said.

Ed looked up at her with confused eyes. "What does?"

"Envy and his friends insulting you. They are the big bullies here." Izumi replied, moving over to her desk and began straightening her papers. "And I don't recommend fighting them. They are part of a martial arts group at this school called the Homunculi. Their master is merciless. She isn't someone you want to meet."

Ed scoffed. "Please, I've been trained in martial arts since I was six."

Izumi raised a brow. "Is that so?"

"Yeah." Ed said, a little unnerved by the smirk that Izumi was giving him.

"There is a second martial arts group at this school called the Alchemists. I'm the teacher in charge of that group. The two groups have a tournament three times a school year. The team that wins the most tournaments gets to go to the national martial arts tournament for groups from all schools around the region." Izumi explained.

Ed's brows knitted together. "O-kay. I don't really get why you are telling me this."

"You want to fight Envy without repercussions, don't you?" Izumi asked.

"You're saying that if I join the Alchemists I can beat Envy's ass into the ground?" Ed asked.

Izumi smirked. "I'm saying you get to fight him. Never said anything about you beating him. If you're interested in joining us there is a training session after school today at my dojo." She wrote an address down for him. "That's the address if you want to come."

Ed slipped the paper in his pocket.

"Afternoon Curtis-sensei!" Maes said as he threw the classroom door opened. He and his friends paused when they noticed Ed in the room with her.

"Is there ever a time when you aren't cheerful, Mr. Hughes?" Izumi asked annoyed.

Maes grinned. "When I'm taking one of your tests, ma'am."

"Then I can't wait for tomorrow." Izumi replied.

Maes grimaced before turning to Edward. "Hey Elric, you shouldn't let Ouroboros get to you like that. He just wants a reaction and you gave him a pretty good one. He's going to keep pushing your buttons because we can all tell that you are holding back your anger."

"Him? Get to me? As if!" Ed growled as he stomped over to a desk and sat down.

"That's what he means, pipsqueak." Roy said, taking the seat next to Ed.

That was the final straw for Ed. He turned to Roy with a glare. "WHO THE HELL IS SO MINISCULE THAT AN ELECTRON COULD CRUSH HIM?"

Roy sat dazed for a moment. "Wow….you have a strong set of lungs. I think you may have actually burst my eardrums…..damn it, kid. I wanted to hear when I was old, you know."

"Don't yell in my class, Elric." Izumi snapped.

Sneering, Ed grabbed his bag and moved to an empty seat next to Riza.

"Hello Elric." Riza greeted, not looking up from her book.

"Hawkeye." Ed replied, pulling his books out of his bag and dropping them on the desk. "What are you doing?"

Riza looked up from her book with a sigh. "Curtis-sensei asks us questions at the beginning of class every Monday to make sure that we are learning. The questions are for a grade. It's a class grade. The quiz is basically something we are all taking together. If you get a question wrong the others will be mad at you since it affects all of our grades so everyone tries to study as much as possible so they don't get any questions wrong."

"Great." Ed muttered.

"Okay, class, we are going to start with our quiz today." Izumi said as soon as the bell rang. She obviously wasted no time in starting class. "Let's start with Mr. Havoc."

Jean quietly groaned. If he did it loud enough for Izumi to hear she would just ask him two or three questions instead of one. He stood up. "Yes Curtis-sensei?"

"What is a net ionic equation?" Izumi asked as she started walking around the classroom.

Jean bit his lip as he thought about the answer. A few students narrowed their eyes at him, just waiting for him to mess up their grade. "A net ionic equation is….an equation that….show only the reactants that change state in the equation. The spectator ions are left out of it."

"Correct." Izumi looked over the students. "Ms. Ross."

Maria stood up quickly. "Ma'am."

"What is the symbol, atomic number, atomic mass, and classification of Barium?" Izumi asked.

"Um…..The symbol is Ba, atomic number is…..56. The atomic mass is….137.327 and it is an Alkaline Earth metal." Maria answered hesitantly.

"That is correct. Hmm, Ms. Cran."

Martel stood up quickly.

"What is the modern periodic law of the elements?"

Martel frowned. "Um…the physical and chemical properties of elements are….p..periodic functions of their….atomic….masses."

Izumi sighed. "Wrong."

Many of the students groaned and glared at Martel, who just shrugged uncaringly and sat down.

"The periodic law of the elements is the physical and chemical properties of elements are periodic functions of their atomic numbers." Izumi said as she walked down the aisle between two rows of the desks. "Mr. Kimberly."

Solf stood up.

"What is the Law of Conservation of Mass?" Izumi asked.

"The Law of Conservation of Mass states that mass cannot be created or destroyed. In other words, in any chemical reaction, the mass of the product must equal the mass of the reactants." Solf replied.

"Correct. Ms. Hawkeye."

Riza stood up quickly. "Ma'am."

"Give me the definition of the double displacement reaction." Izumi said.

"The double displacement reaction is a reaction that has two compounds. The two compounds react to form two new compounds. A molecular compound, a gas, or a precipitate usually drives these reactions." Riza replied confidentially.

Izumi nodded her head. "Mr. Elric."

The class immediately groaned causing Ed and Izumi to frown. "Is there a problem?"

"He's new here. It's his first day. He isn't going to know anything. His school and this one are probably at different levels." Roy explained.

"For that and the groaning, Mr. Elric will be asked the last five questions." Izumi said with a smirk.

"I don't see how that is fair since I wasn't the one who groaned." Ed grumbled as he stood up.

"It's a class quiz, that's how it is fair." Izumi snapped. "What are compounds?"

"Compounds are pure substances made of atoms of two or more elements chemically compound in fixed ratios." Edward replied immediately.

Izumi nodded her head. "What is the symbol, atomic number, atomic mass, and classification of silver?"

"Symbol- Ag. Atomic number- 47. Atomic mass- 107.8682. Classification- Transition metal." Ed replied.

"What always forms in a combustion reaction?"

"Carbon dioxide and water are always the products of a combustion reaction." Ed replied.

"What is amphiprotic and give an example of it?"

"Amphiprotic describes a substance that can act as either an acid or a base. That means it can gain or lose a proton. An example would be water. It can form either a hydroxide ion or a hydronium ion." Edward replied.

Izumi stopped in front of Ed and looked down at him. She smirked at him. "What is the complete composition of the human body, Elric?"

Ed raised a brow in surprise as the rest of class stared in shock at her. What the hell was she thinking?

"Well, Elric?"

"Water: 35 liters. Carbon: 20kg. Ammonia: 4 liters. Lime: 1.5kg. Phosphorus: 800g. Salt: 250 g. Saltpeter: 100g. Sulfur: 80g. Fluorine: 7.5g. Iron: 5g. Silicon: 3g. And a trace amount of fifteen other elements." Edward replied.

Izumi raised a brow. "That is correct. You really are a prodigy."

Ed gave her a cocky grin.

"That or you just got lucky." Izumi said as she walked away. "Now we will continue where we left off on Friday…."

At the end of class, Izumi held them all back. "Remember, there is a test in here tomorrow. And Mr. Elric?"

"Yeah?" Ed asked bored.

"You will be taking it. I don't care if this is your first day at this school." Izumi said with a steely glint in her eyes. "I think you've already proven yourself ready to take it."

"Right." Ed mumbled as he left the class.

Ed stared at the address that Izumi gave him before Chemistry earlier that day. He sat in the driver's seat of his car. School ended ten minutes ago and he still hasn't left. First he waited until everyone else left before he got to his car. He didn't really feel like people seeing him with a car like this yet. It would just cause him more attention. And if he wanted to keep his phone, he would have to stay out of the spotlight.

From the tour of the city that Winry gave him and Al over the weekend Ed knew he could find this dojo easily. He would have time to go there and check it out since Al and Winry had some meeting after school today. He looked back at the note.

_ The Alchemists Dojo- 587 Dublith Street, Central City. Meeting at 3:20 pm. _

Ed put the note in a cup holder and turned his car on. He guessed he could go check the dojo out. The idea of a martial arts group and a rival one did interest him. He loved fighting and this group would give him a chance to fight without getting in trouble. But he never did do well with working on a team. The only person he could work with is his brother. He was rather independent, otherwise.

His car came to a stop in front of the Alchemists Dojo ten minutes later. A few cars were parked on the side of the road, probably the members of the team cars. Ed looked at the note from Izumi again. He turned the note over in his fingers as he thought over his options with the Alchemists.

Joining a club would be good for him and it might help him make friends. But there was also the problem that he didn't do well with teams. Growing up with very few loyal friends made it hard for him. He always had to do things on his own so it just became natural to him.

_This ain't a song for the brokenhearted. No silent prayer for the faith departed. And I ain't gonna be just a face in the crowd._

Sighing, Ed pulled his phone out of his pocket, flipped it open, and looked at the caller ID before answering the call. "What is it, Al?"

"The meeting is over, brother. It was cut short today because Laran-sensei had an emergency." Al replied.

Ed took one last look at the dojo before turning his car on. "I'll be there in fifteen. Can you two stay out of trouble for that long?"

"Brother, we aren't you. We're not troublemakers." Al replied amused.

"No wonder you two are so boring." Ed retorted with a big smile. He was glad that his brother wasn't messed up like him and was a good boy who could actually get loyal friends. "So what type of club meeting was it that Winry forcibly dragged you to?"

"I didn't forcibly drag him to it. I asked him this morning when he texted me if he would want to come with me." Winry shouted through the phone.

Ed pulled the phone away from his ear and hit his brakes so he wouldn't swerve into the other lane or on the sidewalk while he got over the yelling. "Please don't yell, Winry. I'm trying to drive."

"Brother, how many times has dad told you not to talk on your phone and drive at the same time? You know it is dangerous." Al said disapprovingly.

Ed laughed. "Don't worry, Al. You know I always do this and besides you were the one who called me so you only have yourself to blame for me doing this. So, what club was this?"

"Art club. We can draw, paint, build sculptures, or in some cases work on mechanics. That's what Winry and Paninya are always working on at the meetings. It was really fun." Al said excitedly.

"Did you make any friends?" Ed asked, a small smile forming.

The grin Al was wearing could practically be heard through the phone. "Yeah. There's Winry and Paninya. I also met a pair of twins that are their friends, Noah and Rose. They are really nice."

"Al, please tell me you made some friends that are boys." Ed pleaded.

"What's wrong with having all girl friends?" Al asked.

Ed sighed. "Because hanging with all girls might make other people think you are gay." [1]

"Well, I did make some guy friends. There is Fletcher Tringham. He's the younger brother of that boy, Russell that you always beat up in Germany. Apparently their parents got divorced and he came here with his mom. Then there is Wrath Douglas. They are both really cool." Al said.

"Douglas? You should ask him if he knows some named Juliet Douglas." Ed replied.

"Why?" Al asked.  
>She's the secretary at my school." Ed explained.<p>

"Yeah, so about the club. I'm thinking about joining it officially. I had a lot of fun at it today." Al said.

Ed smiled. "Well, go ahead. It's good to be involved in things at school."

"Did you make any friends, Ed?" Winry asked.

"Um…."

Al frowned. "Don't tell me you got into a fight already?"

"No, I haven't." Ed said offended. "Well, I almost did, but I didn't start it. They were the instigators. Besides that, I didn't make any friends. It was a pretty boring day."

"What did you do?" Al asked.

"Nothing."

"Brother."

"I may have knocked a kid out in gym with a baseball, but I did apologize when he woke up." Ed replied.

Al sighed. "That sounds like you. You can't even go one day without hurting someone."

Ed scoffed. "I'm five minutes away from the school so I'm hanging up."

"Okay. Bye brother."

That night Al and Ed sat with their father in the dining room for dinner. Hohenheim sat at the head of the table. Ed and Al each sat on different sides of the table across from each other. Fifteen empty chairs filled the rest of the table with empty plates in front of them. In a sense it was kind of lonely.

"How was your first day of school boys?" Hohenheim asked.

Al grinned. "My day was great. I made a whole bunch of friends. There's obviously Winry, then there is Fletcher, Paninya, Noah, Rose, and Wrath. I also joined the art club. I might also be joining another club and the swimming team. Wrath, Rose, and Winry are on the swimming team. Fletcher and Paninya play soccer and Noah is in dance and also drama club. All my teachers are really nice. There is a history test tomorrow but my teacher, Mr. Lane, is letting me out of taking it because I'm new. My homeroom class even had a welcoming party for me."

"Sounds like you had fun. Just be careful you don't overexert yourself if you do join swimming. Did you get a welcoming party, Ed?" Hohenheim amused at the happy face Al was making that was a complete contrast to Ed's.

"Well, Curtis-sensei seems a little scary and is making me take the Chemistry test tomorrow despite the fact that I haven't been here. I knocked a student out in gym…on accident." He added when he saw his father beginning to frown. "Mustang kept calling me short today. Envy and his little gang were picking on me and insulting me. I wanted to punch him so bad but didn't because of your threat."

"What about friends and clubs?" Hohenheim asked. "Or did you only make enemies?"

Ed sullenly pushed his food around. "You know I have a hard time making loyal friends who won't hurt me in the end. I'm not like Al who everyone likes. All my friends end up hurting me somehow."

"That's not true." Al cried. "What about Alfons Heiderich and Russell Tringham? Sure, Russell and you were rivals but you were sort of friends….very deep down. And Alfons hasn't hurt you in anyway."

"I don't really consider Russell a friend. And Alfons…I can't be sure about him." Ed said.

"That's your problem. You are always pushing everyone away." Al said.

Ed shrugged. "So no friends, just enemies. Curtis-sensei did ask me to join the martial arts group."

"No." Hohenheim said immediately.

"What? Why?" Ed asked angrily.

Hohenheim frowned at his son. "You are much too focused on fighting, Edward. I know you like sparring. I allowed you to learn as a way to protect yourself but you need to focus on school now. You only have two years of high school left then you are off to college. No more extra activities. Just focus on school. You can go far in life, I know it, Ed."

"But Dad, I can't just focus on school. That's so boring. I have a life outside of academics." Ed said irritated. His father always did this. He always pushed academics on him, but Al always got to do what he wanted, join whatever he wanted. Did his dad think that Al wouldn't get far in life because of his 'illness'? "Dad, I like fighting. It's an enjoyable pastime. I want to join. I was going to go to a meeting today but Al called me before I could meet them."

Al looked at his brother sheepishly and a little guilty. He noticed his dad's attitude to his brother as well. Don't get them wrong. They both loved their dad greatly, but he was being unfair. Ever since Ed skipped a grade he has slowly been taking away rights and freedoms from him, saying that he needed to focus on his studies more. He wanted Ed to be a chemist like him. That's why he was pushing more chemistry lessons on his brother than on him. Ed hated it. All those extra lessons were taking away his social life. Hopefully with this new job, their father would be too busy to take what Ed had left of his social life.

"No Edward Van Elric. You don't have time to be going to those training sessions. Those training sessions would take too much time away from your study time. You will fall behind in your classes." Hohenheim said.

"So you are saying no clubs at all?" Ed hissed.

Hohenheim shook his head. "You can join clubs that will look good on a college application like the student council or SADD. You don't have time for sports."

"This isn't fair." Ed slammed a hand on the table.

"I am you father and you will do as I say." Hohenheim said.

"But Dad…."

"No is no."

The rest of the dinner went by in an awkward, uncomfortable silence.

As soon as he finished eating, Ed excused himself and went up to his room. He passed a few servants and maids who greeted him but he ignored all them. He barely registered stomping up the stairs, turning left, and entering his room. His room was really big. A big bed, oak dresser with a mirror, oak desk, closet, and book case were in the room. His bookcase was full of books from head to foot. At the end of his bed was a big chest that had extra blankets in it. On his dresser were hair ties, a brush, a comb, an antique watch, his clock, his cell phone, his keys attached to a white cloth keychain necklace, a family picture that was taken before his mom died, and his black wallet. His desk was covered in pens, pencils, paper, and books. His messenger bag was hanging off his desk chair.

Along with all that, he also had a black leather couch, black leather recliner, a coffee table, a silver-grey flat screen t.v., and a DVD player on the other half of his room. The TV stand had movies lying all around it. A bowl of candy and more movies lay on his coffee table. A bathroom with a shower was connected to his room. The door to it was on the wall that the head of his bed hit. The carpet of his room was silver-grey and his walls were blood red. His bed had black covers with pillows with silver-grey pillowcases. His father let him do what he wanted to his room. It was one of the things his dad let him do.

Ed sat at his desk and pulled his math book out to finish his math homework. He only got through one problem when he heard a knock at his door. "Come in."

"Brother."

Smiling, Ed turned around to see his little brother. "Hi Al."

Al stood nervously in the doorway.

"Come on in. No need to be so nervous, Al." Ed said with a grin.

Al sat on his brother's bed. He looked down and played with the sheets. "I'm sorry about Dad, brother. It's not fair that I can join the sport I want and you can't."

"It's alright, Al. It's not your fault." Ed said weakly.

"You're mad. I know you are." Al replied.

"No, no I'm not, Al."

"Yes, you are. Stop lying!" Al screamed.

Frowning, Ed moved over to his bed. "Al, I need you to calm down. If you don't, your body is going to give again."

"You're mad." Al shouted.

"Yes, I'm mad, but not at you. I could never be mad at you, Al." Ed said soothingly. "I need you to calm down, Al. I'm not mad at you. I love you. You're my little brother. I might get mad at you sometimes, but I will always love you. This isn't your fault."

"Promise?" Al asked.

Ed nodded his head. "Course, Al."

Al took a calming breath and looked up at his brother. "So what will you do?"

"About joining the Alchemists? That's the martial arts group I want to join." Ed explained.

Al nodded his head.

"I'll try to convince Dad to change his mind." Ed said with a grin.

"I'm sorry that he's been taking so many of your freedoms away." Al said.

Ed frowned. "I am too. But with this new job of his he should be busier than he was in Germany so I should be able to get them back."

"Hopefully, but his leash on you has been getting stronger." Al said.

Ed groaned. "Don't remind me. Look, Al, I don't want to talk about this."

Al nodded his head. "What were you doing before I came in?"

"I was working on my homework." Ed replied.

"Oh, sorry I interrupted." Al said.

Ed shrugged. "It's alright."

Al looked around. "Do you mind if I hang around in here for a while?"

"Go ahead, but I'm going to go back to my homework, kay?" Ed said.

Al nodded his head and moved to the other half of the room. He looked at his brother's movie collection and picked one and put it in the DVD player and settled himself on the couch.

Hours later Ed looked up from his finished homework. He walked to the other half of his room. A movie was playing on his t.v. and Al was lying asleep on his couch. Smiling, Ed pulled an extra blanket out of the chest in his room and laid it over Al, who immediately snuggled into it, and turned the movie off.

Ed moved around in the darkness until he got to his bathroom to brush his teeth and changed into a pair of blue sleep pants. He finished in the bathroom and walked through his dark room to his bed. Before he fell asleep, he found himself staring at his clock that read twelve o'clock and thinking about what tomorrow would bring for him.

**A/N: [1] No lie about that. I have a guy friend and everyone in our little group is girls except him and people are constantly asking if he is or thinking he is gay. **

**Please Review! **


	6. Chapter 6

**Disclaimer: I don't own Fullmetal Alchemist, 'It's My Life' by Bon Jovi, or 'Getting Away With Murder' by Papa Roach.**

**It's My Life**

**Thanks for the reviews!**

I'm going to be going back and forth between German and Japanese. When I switch languages German will be in **bold **and Japanese will be in _italics,_ for at least the first line of the change_._

"Talking"

Thinking

_**Texting**_

**Chapter 6**

_Somewhere beyond happiness and sadness  
>I need to calculate<br>What creates my own madness  
>And I'm addicted to your punishments<br>And you're the master  
>And I am waiting for disaster<em>

Groaning, Ed rolled over in his bed to look at his clock. It read six in the morning. Even though school didn't start until eight he had to get up early. He had to take a shower, eat breakfast, make sure he had all his stuff, and make sure that Al took his shower and got ready. Their father either slept in late or left early in the morning. On the mornings he didn't have to be in early he tried to get up early to see his sons. The maids and servants didn't really take care of them. They just made sure to make the meals and keep the mansion clean. Besides getting ready for school, he also had to leave early to get to Winry's and pick her up then get to the Junior High School to drop them off and get to his school. His mornings were going to be really busy this year.

_I feel irrational  
>So confrontational<br>To tell the truth I am,  
>Getting away with murder<em>

"Brother, turn your alarm off. It's too loud." Al's voice yelled over the song.

_It is impossible  
>To never tell the truth<br>But the reality is,  
>I'm getting away with murder<em>

Ed looked at his CD player/alarm/clock on his dresser. To turn it off he would have to get out of his comfy, warm bed and he didn't want to do that. He was cold enough because of the automail. The cold air would just make it worse.

_(whisper)  
>Getting away<br>Getting away  
>Getting away<br>_Sighing in annoyance, Ed threw his comforter off himself and rolled off his bed. His feet hit the soft, plush carpet, too bad only one of his feet could feel it. He turned his alarm off before going over to the couch to rip the blanket off Al.

"If I have to get up so do you." Ed said.

Al gave his brother puppy-dog eyes.

"No. Get up and go take a shower." Ed yelled over his shoulder as he walked to his bathroom. Along the way he grabbed a pair of boxers, black pants, socks, a black long sleeve shirt, and his gloves.

"Wear something besides black." Al shouted as he left the room in a huff.

When the brothers finally made it downstairs to the dining room they saw their dad sitting at the table waiting for them. Breakfast sat untouched on the table.

"Good morning sons." Hohenheim greeted.

"Morning Dad." Two voices chorused.

"How did you two sleep?" Hohenheim asked.

"Comfortable." Ed replied stiffly. His father was being all formal which meant the conversation from last night was still weighing on his mind. "So, Dad, about that ma…."

"No."

"You don't even know what I was going to ask." Ed said angrily.

Hohenheim put his silverware down and looked at his son evenly. "You were going to ask to join that martial arts group. I've already told you no, Edward, so stop asking. You don't have time for that foolishness."

Ed glared at his breakfast. "It's not foolishness."

"All you do is beat each other up." Hohenheim said stubbornly.

"It's a sport and great defense. It's a way for me to make friends." Ed retorted.

The father shook his head and went back to eating. "Edward, think of your mother."

Al almost groaned as he buried his face in his hands. Pulling out the mother card already, was he? It was always the same. His dad and brother would fight about something Ed wants to do. Ed tries for days to convince his dad. Their dad eventually gets so annoyed that he pulls out the mom card to get Ed to obey him.

"Your mother would want you to focus on your studies. She knew you could go far in life. She would want you to study to be a great chemist. Martial arts is just holding you back from having a great future. Your mother wanted you to stop martial arts because she saw it was holding you back in your academics. If it wasn't for martial arts you could be in your last year of high school or in you first year of college by now." Hohenheim said calmly, staring his son in the eye with even eyes. "Your mother always knew best."

Al frowned at his dad. Mom wouldn't want Ed to be in college right now is what Al wanted to say. She would want Ed to be happy and have the chance to act his age.

Ed bowed his head in submission.

Al wanted to scream at his brother for giving up so easily. It wasn't fair. His dad knew that Ed would do anything for their mother. It was all he could do now that she was dead. Their dad was controlling Ed's life.

"I don't think it's true." Al said when they were in the car on the way to Winry's.

"What?" Ed asked stiffly.

"What dad said about Mom wanting you to give up martial arts. You're too blind because of your loyalty to mom to realize it but mom has always just wanted us to be happy. If martial arts makes you happy, mom would want you to pursue it. She wants you to do what you love, not what Dad wants." Al said.

Ed stared at the road in front of him with a frown.

"Brother?" Al asked worriedly.

"I don't know, Al." Ed said quietly.

The elder Elric brother watched his little brother and Winry as they walked into their school with their friends that were waiting for them. They were all smiling and laughing. For a moment Ed felt immensely jealous of his brother. But just for a moment before he was beating himself up inside. His brother was so nice and innocent. He shouldn't feel hatred or jealously at him just because their dad was being a jerk and taking more of his social life away. But watching Al converse with his friends made his heart clench. Why couldn't he make friends like Al?

His eyes moved to his clock to see that it was seven fifty-three. He only had seven minutes to class started. Damn it, he spent too much time arguing with his dad and watching his brother and his friends. Swearing under his breath, Ed threw his car into drive. He would not be late on his second day of school.

As soon as he saw the student parking lot, Ed slammed on his brakes-he was going really fast to get to school on time- and turned sharply into the parking lot. He parked in the closest empty spot and grabbed his phone, keys, wallet, and messenger bag before getting out of the car. As he was crossing the road he was checking his phone for the time, seven fifty-eight, and he had to get to the third floor. This was not his day. He shoved his phone, keys, and wallet in his bag as he walked out of the parking lot.

As soon as he was on school ground he took off running. If he was late and his dad found out, he was in for a big scolding about how he doesn't care about his education…..because HE WAS LATE TO ONE CLASS!

The halls were pretty much empty since the ball was going to ring in a minute. A few stragglers here and there were entering their classes. If they were going in then he really was running out of time.

Ed skidded to a stop in front of his homeroom, slightly out of breath and faint pink was shining on his face from his run. Just as he opened the classroom door and stepped into the class, the bell rang.

At her desk, Izumi looked up. An amused, rare smile graced her face. "You are very nearly late, Mr. Elric." She said to the amusement of the class.

"But I wasn't." Ed grumbled as he made his way to his isolated corner.

"Elric, come here." Izumi said just as he got settled down in his corner.

Seriously? You couldn't have said so before I sat down. Ed thought angrily as he kicked his chair back and marched back to the front of the classroom.

"Yes Curtis-sensei?"

Izumi didn't reply. She just made a follow me gesture and walked into the hallway.

"Yes Curtis-sensei?" Ed asked once more when he closed the classroom door.

"Where were you yesterday?" Izumi asked.

Ed blinked in confusion. "What?"

Izumi sighed. "I asked you to join the Alchemists because I thought it would interest you. You are new here and an easy way to make friends is to join a group. I saw that you were pretty much alone yesterday. And you do like fighting so I thought this would help. You did look very interested about it yesterday." She crossed her arms and glared down at Ed. "So where were you? I expected you to be at the dojo yesterday."

Ed winced. His teacher was trying to help him and he disappointed her. "I'm sorry, Curtis-sensei. I can't join the Alchemists."

"And why not?" Izumi growled. "I need a really good reason."

The young teenager bowed his head. "Curtis-sensei, before I can answer, I need to ask something. Does a mother want what is best for her child or what makes the child happy?"

Izumi stared at Ed for a minute in silent shock and confusion. "Well….it's a complicated answer and I guess it depends on the mother. Me, I would want my child to have both, but if I could only choose one, I would want my child to be happy. If the child had what was best but wasn't happy they probably wouldn't want to live that life."

"So the child would leave and make his own life so he was happy." Ed said.

Izumi nodded her head. "Or end it. As I said it all depends on the person. Does any of this have to do with why you won't join the Alchemists?"

Ed lifted his head to look at Izumi. His eyes showed that he was thinking and thinking hard. He gnawed on his bottom lip before saying, "No. It doesn't. It's just something I was curious about."

"So I answered your question, now you answer mine." Izumi replied.

"Fighting is stupid. I don't care about it anymore. It's just a way to hurt someone. It is pointless." Edward replied harshly, looking away from his teacher as he said it. He couldn't face her when he was lying about something he really loved.

Izumi raised a brow. "Do you really think that, Elric?"

Ed paused for a moment before nodding.

"You shouldn't let others influence your opinions." Izumi said calmly, walking past Ed towards her classroom door.

"I'm not." Ed growled.

Izumi sighed. She paused in front of her door, but didn't turn around to face Ed. "Don't lie to me like that. I know when someone is lying. You said you liked fighting yesterday and now less than a day later you are saying you hate it and think it is stupid. You are letting someone influence your opinions. Think for yourself, Elric. What do you want?"

What do I want? I know I want to be a member of the Alchemists. But dad won't let me and what if he said about mom is true? Would she want me to give up martial arts? But Curtis-sensei just said I should make my own decisions. I am sixteen. I should stop falling for the mom card. It will rule my life forever at this rate. Ed looked out the window in the hallway at the brought blue sky. What should he do?

"I've done all I can for you, Mr. Elric. Deciding what to do now is up to you. It is your life, do what you want with it." Izumi said before walking back into the class. "Decide what you want to do. There is another training session today after school at three twenty."

"Yes sensei. Thank you, sensei." Ed replied quietly.

Ed sat back at his desk and stared out the window. Why did his father have to interfere all the

time? It was like Izumi said. It was his life. He should get to make decisions in his life.

*It's*My*Life*

"Sit down and shut up." Izumi barked as soon as the bell rang for class to start. "Your tests are on your desks. Begin."

There was the sound of papers being rustled as everyone turned their tests over. Ed twirled his pencil in his hand as he looked at the test. It was all essay questions and ten converting problems at the end. He looked at the first question and smirked. This was going to be too easy. He should thank his father for those years of chemistry lessons, even if he hated them.

Half way through the class Ed looked up from his finished test. He looked at his classmates. Jean was frowning and chewing on his pencil. Roy was writing fiercely. Riza was looking at her paper thoughtfully and writing slowly as if she was still thinking about her answer. Maes was tapping his pencil against the side of his desk as he stared at his test. The other students were scribbling away or staring at their test with a lost look. Sighing, Ed looked back at his test and flipped through it to check his answers for the rest of the class.

*It's*My*Life*

As Ed walked out of school with his phone in his hand that day he saw a group of people surrounding his car. He noticed that they were some of the students from his classes.

_**Hey Al, do you have a meeting after school today? **_Ed texted before approaching the people around his car.

"This is an awesome car. What student can afford a car like this?" Jean was saying as he ran a hand over the shiny car.

"I have never seen this car here before." Heymans said. "Someone must have just gotten it."

"That doesn't answer the question of what student could afford this." Roy said.

"Hands off my car, Havoc." Ed growled, arms crossed over his chest as he glared at the blond boy.

Jean and his friends looked at Ed in shock. "This is your car? Yeah right." Jean sneered. "As if you could afford this car."

Ed waved his keys in the air. "What do you think these keys go to?"

_My heart is like an open highway. Like Frankie said, "I did it my way". I just wanna live while I'm alive 'Cause it's my life._

Ignoring his classmates for a second, Ed flipped his phone open.

_**No we don't have a meeting. Why?**_

_**Tell you after I pick you up and drop Winry off. I'm going to need your help.**_

"Now move. I have things I need to do." Ed growled as he slipped his phone into his pocket.

"Whatever. We have a meeting to get to anyway." Roy muttered.

*It's*My*Life*

"See ya tomorrow, Winry!" Al yelled to her back as she was walking up her driveway.

Winry turned around and waved. "Bye Al, Ed!"

"So what do you need my help with?" Al asked as his brother drove away from Winry's.

"Al, can you keep a secret from dad?" Ed asked, looking in his rearview mirror at Al.

Al looked away from the window to look at his brother. "Oh no, what did you do now?"

"Nothing yet." Ed replied. "I'm going to join the Alchemists, Al. I'm going to need your help in covering for me with dad."

"You know when I told you that mom would want you to be happy this morning I didn't mean I wanted to be dragged into this." Al grumbled. "How exactly do you plan to work this?"

Ed frowned in thought. "Well, there is a meeting today. I want to…..well, my teacher will give me another lecture about not showing up to it. We'll figure out a plan later for dealing with this. For now I'm just going to take you home, tell dad I have to go back to school for a meeting, and go to the meeting. I just need you to cover for me if he gets suspicious. I'm not sure how long the training session will take."

Ed ran inside with his brother. He ran upstairs to his room and dropped his messenger bag off on his bed then ran back downstairs. "Clarice!"

The maid that was walking up the stairs stopped and looked back at Ed. "Yes Master Edward?"

"Where is dad?" Ed said.

Clarice smiled sadly. "He is at the lab. He is going to be working late tonight."

"How late?" Ed asked.

"I'm not sure but I think he said he would be back around seven thirty since he has asked me to serve you and your brother dinner at six thirty." Clarice replied.

Ed nodded his head. "I have things to do but I will try to be back in time for dinner."

Clarice nodded her head. "Have a nice time with whatever you are doing."

As Clarice walked away, Al rounded the bottom of the stairs and looked up at his brother who was still on the stairs. "That was a lucky break, brother. Now you don't have to lie to dad."

"Yeah." Ed looked at his phone and paled. "But the meeting started at three twenty. It is now three thirty. Damn."

Al smiled. "Have fun."

Grumbling, Ed left his house, ruffling his brother's hair as he walked passed him. His teacher was going to be mad at him.

Fifteen minutes later Ed parked his car on the side of the road across from the Alchemists dojo. He was twenty-five minutes late for the meeting but that is what happens when one has a little brother and friend to take care of. It was his responsibility to look out for them.

Just as he walked through the dojo doors he had to drop to his knees to avoid getting hit by the flying body of one of the martial artist being thrown. He looked over his shoulder to see Maes picking himself up from the ground, pain etched on his face.

Before Ed could even think of anything to say he felt someone grab his arm and flip him, slamming him onto the ground and pinning him. "You should always pay attention to your surroundings."

"I get it. Now get off me." Ed grumbled.

"You're late." The woman said as she got off him.

Ed pushed himself up and glared at Izumi. "Yeah, well I have other responsibilities I have to attend to."

"Sensei, why is Elric here?" Roy asked.

Izumi looked at Ed with a raised a brow. "So, what is your answer?"

"Yes." Ed said after some hesitance.

Izumi clapped her hands. "Good." She turned to the group of students. Only Maes and Roy were standing since they were sparring. The others were sitting along the walls watching the fight. Each of them was wearing sweat pants and a loose shirt for training. Ed recognized Riza, Jean, Vato, Heymans, Alex, Olivier, and Miles.

"From this day forward, Edward is a part of the Alchemists." Izumi announced.

"Him?" Jean asked, pointing a finger at Ed in shock.

"Yes."

Jean frowned at Ed.

"Something wrong, Havoc?" Ed asked.

"You're supposed to be a nerd." Jean muttered.

Ed narrowed his eyes. "What? Because I'm smart I can't be strong?"

"Yes!" Jean shouted.

"Havoc, Elric, sparring ring now." Izumi said.

Roy and Maes moved out of the ring and sat down against the wall as Jean got up and moved to the ring. Ed looked down at his arm before joining Jean. Whenever he sparred with his brother he took it easy on him because of his automail. He would have to do that here as well so he wouldn't hurt Jean.

"Ready?" Izumi called. She stood between the two so neither would start before she said they could. "Set? Fi-"

_This ain't a song for the brokenhearted. No silent prayer for the faith departed. And I ain't gonna be just a face in the crowd. __You're gonna hear my voice when I sh-_

"Oh, come on." Edward cried in annoyance. He pulled his phone out and flipped it open. "I've only been gone for twenty minutes, Al. What could you possibly need?...oh, Clarice. Um…why do you have Al's phone?"

"Elric." Izumi barked.

Ed shot her an apologetic look but didn't reply as he was listening to Clarice. "What type of emergency?...well, how the hell did that happen?...You don't know?...Forget it. I'll ask Al what happened later. Did you call our dad?...Of course he didn't answer. He's always too busy with his job to answer when we actually need his help…just keep Al calm, kay? If he gets too worked up over this he'll just make his condition worse…..yeah, I'll be there in about fifteen."

"Is something wrong?" Izumi asked.

"Just an emergency. Sorry I have to go take care of this." Edward said quickly before running out of the dojo.

Jean rolled his eyes at his friends. "Probably just an excuse so he didn't have to spar."

"Or maybe there really is something wrong." Olivier snapped.

"As if. He just so happens to get a phone call right before our fight begins?" Jean scoffed.

"How do you plan something to be that precise?" Riza retorted.

Jean rolled his eyes. "He's a genius, Riza. He could do it."

"Why do you hate him so much?" Maes asked.

"I don't hate him. I dislike him. He hasn't given me a reason to like him. He acts so calm and cool and walks around like he owns the place. It's so annoying." Jean growled.

Sighing, Izumi hit Jean in the head. "Did you ever think that it could just be a front? He's putting an act on because he's new and doesn't know anyone. You can't judge him without knowing him. Back in the sparring ring, Havoc. Miles, in the ring as well."

_Edward Elric_

Ed slid the forms back across the front desk to the receptionist when he finished filling them out. "Is Al already with the doctor?"

"Yes. That woman that came with him, Clarice, said you would be here soon to sign all the forms. With how much blood he was losing the doctor took him in right away. The bleeding needed to stop." The receptionist replied. "The waiting room is down the hall and to the left."

"Thank you." Ed replied.

"Clarice."

Clarice looked up from the magazine she was reading. "Master Edward."

Ed sat down and stretched his arms in front of him. "Clarice, where exactly did the knife hit him?"

"Oh, it just sliced the upper part of his arm. He's probably just going to get stitches." Clarice explained.

"And you don't know how it happened?" Ed asked.

Clarice shook her head. "I wasn't in the kitchen when it happened."

Sighing, Ed leaned back in his seat and closed his eyes. His arms crossed over his chest and he kicked his legs forward, crossing them at the ankle.

A voice being cleared woke Ed up from his little nap. "Mister Elric?"

Ed stood up. He looked at the doctor. His name tag said Doctor Young. "Yes?"

"I finished stitching up your brother's arm. I gave him some pain medication for it." Doctor Young explained, flipping through some papers on his clipboard. "He can go home now. Bring him back in about a week and half for me to check his wound."

"Thank you Doctor Young." Ed said.

"As for the payment, your insurance will cover most it. I just need a down payment." Doctor Young said, scribbling on a piece of paper. He handed the paper to Ed.

Ed looked at it. "Thanks." He turned to Clarice and handed the bill and two thousand two yen to her. "Take this to the receptionist. I'll go get Al."

Clarice nodded her head and took the bill and money from him.

Ed followed the doctor to his brother's room. His hands shoved in his pockets as he looked at the ceiling. What should he do? He would take his brother home, no doubt about that. But he would have to tell his father that his brother got hurt and that he wasn't home when it happened. He was going to be mad. It was his job to watch Al. And he just walked out of a training session for the Alchemists on his first day being there. He was going to be in a lot of trouble with these people.

"Brother!"

The elder Elric brother grinned at his little brother. "Hi Al."

Al's smile faltered. "I'm sorry about getting hurt and interrupting your meeting."

"Forget about it Al." Ed replied, ruffling Al's hair. "Let's just get you home and you can tell me how this happened." His eyes moved to the stitches in Al's right arm.

Al jumped off the bed. "I was in the kitchen to get food cause I was hungry. I was digging through a cupboard and one of the chefs dropped his knife while I was ruffling through it. It was a complete accident."

"Of course it was." Ed said as he led Al out of the room with his hands on Al's shoulders.

"Sorry about dragging you away from your training. I know that you really wanted to be there." Al said.

Ed shrugged. "I just want to get home now and figure out a way to explain this to dad."

Al winced. "I'm sorry brother."

That night after Ed explained how Al hurt his arm, Hohenheim looked at Ed with narrowed eyes. Al stood next to his brother with angry eyes directed at his father. Edward had his head bowed. His bangs were shielding his face.

"You are the older brother, Edward. You are supposed to watch over Alphonse to keep him from getting hurt. What were you doing that kept you from watching Al? There are maids and servants around but it isn't their job to watch your brother." Hohenheim said angrily.

Ed glanced at his brother then at his father. "I was….studying."

"Studying doesn't give you justification for not watching Al more closely. You should be able to do both." Hohenheim said.

Al frowned. "Now wait just a moment. I don't need brother to watch me every single moment. I can watch out for myself. It was just an accident. Even if brother was watching me he couldn't have stopped it. It could have turned out worst if he was watching me. It was just an accident. Brother can't be blamed for this. I am thirteen. I don't need brother to babysit me. There is no one to blame." He looked at his brother with a small smile. Loyalty went a long way between the brothers.

Hohenheim sighed. "Al, with your 'illness'….."

"Dad, stop." Ed said sadly.

Sighing, the older man ran a hand over his face tiredly. "Edward, just keep a closer eye on your brother next time. We were lucky this time, but next time we might not be so lucky. My hours at the lab are going to be longer so I won't be able to be here much. I can't use my phone in the lab. It might interfere with some of our experiments. So basically, Ed you'll be in charge while I'm away so you are to watch Al. Don't slack on your studies though." Hohenheim said warningly.

Growling, Ed nodded his head. His dad just kept pushing more responsibility on him. Watch the house, watch Al, do you studies, take Al and Winry to school and pick them up, sign all the hospital forms. All these responsibilities were just going to take his social life away which is probably what his dad wanted. It would mean he wouldn't be able to hang with his friends if he ever got any. Basically his social life was being diminished more and more. His dad wanted to teach him responsibility. This was just a way for him to resent it all.

"I'll go study now." Ed said through gritted teeth.

"Don't give me that attitude." Hohenheim growled.

"Yes sir." Ed said as calmly as he could get himself before spinning on his heels and leaving his father's study.

Al looked at his brother's retreating back then back at his father. "Excuse me dad." He ran out of the study after his brother.

"Brother, I'm sorry about dad."

"Al, don't worry about it. You need to stop apologizing so much." Ed replied as he climbed the stairs to his room. "I'm just tired of dad trying to end my social life so I will only focus on my studies. I already skipped one year and now he's trying to force more studying down my throat. I don't want to lose anymore of my life before I do become an adult. I want to have some fun."

"First step brother is to make some friends." Al said.

Ed sighed. "I can't, Al. I said before I don't know how to make them. I'm not you. Not everyone likes me."

"That's because you can be really mean and cold." Al chirped.

Rolling his eyes, Ed thumped his brother on the head. "I'm glad you can be so happy about this."

Al shot his brother a grin before taking off down the hall to his room to escape his brother's next attack on his head. He heard Ed shout at his back to come back but he didn't listen. He ran into his room and slammed his door shut with a feral grin. These moments with his brother were fun. He loved having them with him. It was a time for them to act like kids without having to worry about their studies.

As he heard his brother pounding on his bedroom door Al let out a laugh. His dad may be trying to control his brother's life by making him study all the time and not letting him do what he wants but that didn't stop Ed from playing cat and mouse with him.

**A/N: Two thousand two yen = $25**

**I start work tomorrow. So sad, it means less time for writing. I want to cry. I like writing!**

**Please Review!**


	7. Chapter 7

**Disclaimer: I don't own Fullmetal Alchemist or 'It's My Life' by Bon Jovi.**

**It's My Life**

**Thanks for reviewing!**

**Jaz96min: Thanks for thinking I am good at writing. I'm glad you like my stories. No, I'm not an author and I don't plan to be one. Writing is just a pastime for me. Thanks for the review. The length of the chapters depends on all that happens in them. So each chapter will either be longer or shorter than the last. **

I'm going to be going back and forth between German and Japanese. When I switch languages German will be in **bold **and Japanese will be in _italics,_ for at least the first line of the change_._

"Talking"

Thinking 

_**Texting**_

**Chapter 7**

October third.

This day meant a lot to the Elric family. On this day Trisha Elric died in that car accident, Ed lost his arm and leg, and Al's illness came to be. They were all hurt on this day. Hohenheim wasn't hurt physically, but his heart was suffering from the loss of his wife and that fact that his two sons who he loved greatly were hurt. All of them remembered this day clearly, though none of them wanted to.

Ed had to practically drag himself out of his bed this morning. He never liked getting up on this morning. Staying in bed all day was much more preferably than getting up and getting on with life. But he knew his mother wouldn't want him to mope around. She would want him to get on with his life. She would want him to live, live for her. Moping around would not get anything done or change the fact that she died.

After taking his shower and getting dressed Ed left his room and walked to his brother's room, which was three rooms down the hall. Not bothering to knock, the elder Elric brother just threw his brother's bedroom door open while yelling, "GET UP, AL! THIS IS NO TIME FOR SLEEPING! THERE IS A KITTY OUTSIDE IN THE COLD RAIN!"

Immediately, Al shot up from his bed and ran out of his room, leaving a laughing Ed behind. Ed sat on his brother's bed to wait for the younger one to return.

"That wasn't funny, brother." Al grumbled when he came back into his room.

"I don't know how you fell for it." Ed smirked. He looked out the window. "The sun is shining right through the curtains."

Glaring at his brother, Al went to his bathroom to get ready for the day. Satisfied with his work, Ed left the room and went back to his room to grab his keys, cell phone, messenger bag, and his black wallet before heading downstairs to wait for his brother and for his breakfast.

"Today is the day." Al said somberly when he sat down for breakfast.

Ed sent his brother a sad smile. "Yes, it is, but we shouldn't be sad. Mom would want us to be happy for her. She would want us to go as far as we could in life while still being happy. Isn't that what you basically told me the other day? Mom would be happy with whatever makes us happy even if it doesn't take us far."

Al nodded his head. "I just miss her so much."

"I do too, Al, I do too." Ed glanced at his father's empty seat. "And so does dad. He just buries himself in his work so he doesn't have to deal with these painful feelings of missing her and feeling lonely without her around to fill the house with cheerfulness."

"I'm not lonely. I have you and my friends. If anyone is lonely, it is you brother." Al replied, pushing his eggs around on his plate. "Will you at least try to make at least one friend today?"

Ed laughed. "You're still pushing that. I'm fine without friends, Al, but for you I can try. Tell me, oh wise one, how do I make friends? You seem to do it so easily."

"Don't just sit there and stare out the window like I know you do. People aren't just going to come up to you and make friends with you. You have to look for them. Go and talk to someone. That's where friendships start." Al replied.

"Kind of hard when you start at a new school because everyone has been together for years and already have their friends. I'm the new kid who doesn't know anyone." Ed replied.

"That's not an excuse. I made friends." Al argued fiercely.

Ed shrugged. "Yeah, but you had Winry with you." He pointed out gently, but there was a trace of envy hidden in his voice that even he may not have realized was there.

"True." Al said with a nod of his head.

"Whatever. I'll try to talk to someone today, Al." Ed said idly. "But I'm not making any promises."

"That's all I ask." Al replied happily.

Rolling his eyes, Ed threw his messenger bag over his shoulders and left the dining room. Al ran after his brother, yelling for him to wait for him.

"You're late." Winry accused as soon as she opened the passenger's door.

"Sorry, I got up late this morning so that meant Al got up late as well." Ed told her as he checked his clock. At this rate he was going to be almost late to his homeroom again.

"Well don't get up late." Winry argued.

Ed rolled his eyes. "I don't have to drive you to school you know. We can always walk there if you want."

Innocent eyes flashed at Ed as Winry pretended to zip her lips shut.

"So Al," Winry said as she turned to her friend. "Do you want to sleepover this weekend?"

Ed turned to look at Winry quickly with a frown before turning back to the road. "I'm not sure our dad would be comfortable with Al staying at a girl's house." Or me. He added in his head.

"Don't worry Ed. Wrath and Fletcher will be there. I know some boys can be uncomfortable when surrounded by all girls. Noah, Rose, and Paninya are coming as well." Winry added to Al.

"Please brother? I don't want to spend my weekend at home. Can I please go to Winry's?" Al pleaded with his hands clasped in front of him. "I'll be good and it will be alright because I won't be the only boy there."

Winry leaned forward to look at Ed more closely. "And my parents and grandma will be there. Nothing is going to happen."

Ed hesitated for moment longer. "I guess you can go, Al."

Behind him Al and Winry erupted into cheers of delight.

"Oh, and brother?" Al said as Ed helped him and Winry out of the car. "I talked to Wrath. Your secretary is his mom."

Ed nodded his head. "I thought so. I mean, what were the chances that they had the same last name and didn't know each other?"

"HEY WINRY, AL!"

Al and Winry looked towards the school to see their friends waving them over. Winry grinned and ran over to them. Before Al could follow Ed put a hand on his shoulder.

"How is your arm?"

"It's fine, Ed. A little pain isn't going to kill me." Al replied, glancing over at his friends.

"Go ahead. I have to leave before I'm late anyway. Just don't rip the stitches out." Ed told his energetic brother.

"Thanks. Don't be late or dad will scold you again and after everything that's happened this week, it won't be good. I won't. Bye brother." Al replied so fast that his words were almost incoherent before running over to his friends.

It took Ed a minute to break out of the stupor that Al threw him into. His brother never spoke that fast. He was usually calm and quiet. But now looking at his friends he saw that they were all loud and energetic people. He must have changed himself a little for his friends.

Damn it. I can't believe I let Al's friends distract me that long. Ed thought angrily as he ran down the hallway. Note to self, don't get up late again.

Slightly flushed, Ed came to a stop in front of his homeroom. He entered the classroom just in time.

"Don't make this a habit, Mr. Elric, because you won't be so lucky one of these times." Izumi said placidly.

"Don't plan to." Ed replied before heading to his corner. As he sat down he remembered that promise he made his brother and let his head drop to his desk with a thump. Despite his calm, badass attitude he was nervous as hell. He didn't know the first thing about making friends. Al said to just talk to someone, but what was he supposed to say?

*It's*My*Life*

"Can't you pitch any better than that, pipsqueak?" Envy asked snidely as the ball was tossed back to Ed.

"DON'T CALL ME A PIPSQUEAK, YOU GENDER CONFUSED PALM TREE!" Edward yelled angrily as he threw the baseball at Envy's head.

Envy ducked so the ball went over his head. When he stood up he was glaring at Ed. "What did you call me?"

"A gender confused palm tree. I mean really, the first time I saw you I didn't know if you were a girl or boy. You wear the boy's uniform but really, you sound like a girl's and a boy's voice mixed so it is hard to tell. And your hair reminds me of a palm tree. With how pale you are and with that hair I'm surprised you don't get mistaken for a palm tree more often." Ed sneered at him. "Honestly, are you an idiot? I shouldn't have to explain that to you."

"You son of…." Envy started to say, which would have ended badly for him if he had finished what he was saying. He only stopped because his voice was drowned out by the loud laughter coming from his classmates. Even his friends, Frank and Solf, were laughing some.

Scar stood to the side of the class and rolled his eyes. His students could argue and verbally hurt each other. He didn't care. He was trying to make them toughen up. Part of being strong was being able to handle what your opponent says to you. Only when punches started getting involved did he interfere.

Glaring at Ed and silently vowing revenge, Envy stormed off to the locker rooms. No one dared to humiliate him like that. No one!

A hand being clapped on his back made Ed look up. "Jean, what do you want?" He growled.

"No need for such hostility." Jean said with his hands held in front of him in a sign of surrender. "I just wanted to say nice job."

"Huh?"

"He means nice insult. No one really likes the Homunculi here and most are too afraid to stand up to them. The Alchemists are pretty much the only ones that don't fear them." Riza explained.

"Oh." Ed said quietly.

Jean grinned at him. "That had to be one of the best insults hurled at Envy. Maybe you aren't so bad after all, Elric."

Ed shot him an evil grin. "Thanks, but that was only the beginning."

"Targeting the Homunculi?" Roy asked and when Ed nodded his head he continued. "The Homunculi rule the school by using fear. We are taking them down. Olivier is the student council president. We are keeping the Homunculi out of student council and are aiming to beat them at this tournament."

"I already joined the Alchemists and will help you take them down. Envy is mine though." Ed growled.

Roy shrugged and held his hand out. "Anyone who stands up to the Homunculi like that is a friend."

Ed stared at the hand in front of him. There were two problems. One, he would have to use his right hand to shake and that he could not done because of his automail. Secondly, it was Roy Mustang, the man who constantly threw short jokes at him, ignoring the fact that they've only known each other for two days.

But he did promise Al that he would try and make friends. And here was a group offering their friendship to him. Besides his promise to Al, he was lonely. He couldn't study and hang with his _little _brother forever. There was also the fear of being hurt or betrayed by friends again. He didn't want that again, but he couldn't know what type of friends they would be until he's gotten to know them.

Ed held his left hand out. "Sorry, I shake with my left."

With an eye roll, Roy swapped his hand and shook hands with Ed, sealing the deal of friendship. "Time for proper introductions. I'm Roy Mustang. Call me Roy."

"Edward Elric."

"Took you long enough to make friends with us." Maes said cheerfully.

Ed stared blankly at him.

"Don't mind him. He's an idiot." Jean said.

"Hey!" Maes growled.

"By saying that then it makes it sound like you knew he was going to be our friend from the start." Riza said.

Maes grinned maniacally. "Of course. Roy wasn't going to let him stay by himself, not with the Homunculi picking on him because he is new, alone, skipped a grade, and now because he's offended one of them." He stopped and looked at Ed. "Really, stop giving them so many reasons to target you." Maes turned back to Riza before Ed could retort. "Gracia was also going to talk to him soon because Roy was being too slow in talking to him. She wanted to talk to him because she thought he was lonely. By her doing that, you, Maria, Rebecca, and I would talk to him. We would then end up being friends with him which would bring him into our group."

"All of that would depend on if Elric let Gracia talk to him." Fuery pointed out.

"Which he would have because Gracia is really nice and he isn't a bad person." Maes replied.

Ed's head felt like it was going to explode with all this. "Wow, Hughes, you should really be an investigator."

"That's what I'm going to major in at college. And Ed, call me Maes. All my friends do." Maes said.

"Yep. Maes." Jean said, causing Maes to look at him.

"Maes." Gracia said with a smirk.

"Maes." Roy said in sing-song.

"Maes." Heymans said.

"Maes." Riza said.

"Maes." Fuery said.

Ed watched as Maes looked back and forth between his friends in amusement. "Maes."

Maes faltered for a moment and looked at Ed with a frown before walking away while grumbling, "Great. They've taught Ed the game as well."

After buying his lunch, Ed walked into the cafeteria and looked where his new friends were sitting. There wasn't an empty seat at the table. With a sad smile, Ed went over to an empty table and sat down. He didn't even know why he was sad. They just became his friends last period and he was new. Of course they would forget about him already.

Being abandoned by his friends was nothing new to Ed. Keeping friends has always been difficult for him. They hung out with him for a cool reputation because he was smart, cool, the bad boy. They hung out with him for money. They hung out with him for his help in getting them out of trouble. It was all the same. They used him and that hurt. Some even betrayed him by pushing the blame on him because they knew his father could get him out of trouble but it still hurt. Alfons Heiderich was the only one of his friends to not hurt him in Germany. He was lucky for that because all the ones who did ended up in the hospital. Even that though didn't make him feel any better. But that was obvious. He only did that because it was his revenge to them hurting him.

Ed felt himself being jerked backwards which caused a small sound of surprise to escape his lips. As his chair was being dragged backwards with him on it, Ed saw a hand out of the corner of his eye grab his lunch tray. He turned his head to see who was dragging his chair away from his table and raised a brow. "Mustang, what are you doing?"

"First of all, call me Roy. Second of all, we're sitting over here." As Roy finished talking he let go of Ed's chair which was now positioned at the head of the table they were sitting at and Maes put his lunch in front of him.

Blinking in surprise, Ed found himself looking up at his new friends. They actually remembered him and came to him to bring him to their table. Maybe they could be good friends.

"After school I say we go to my house." Roy said. He glanced at Ed. "That means you to. We get together after school sometimes to either hang out or study. This week we are at my house. It's a different house each week."

"You get together every week?" Ed asked.

"No. We just have a schedule of whose house we go to each week. We don't necessarily have to go to that person's house at all that week." Alex explained.

Ed scratched his head. "Um….just give me your address then. I have some things I need to do after school before I can meet you there."

"How long will it take you?" Roy asked.

"Depends on where you live." Ed retorted.

"Relax shorty. No need for the attitude." Roy replied.

Ed's eye twitched. "WHO…"

Maes slammed a hand over Ed's mouth. "Please don't yell again."

Huffing, Ed crossed his arms and settled for glaring at Roy.

"What do you have to do after school anyway?" Jean asked curiously, leaning forward on the table to look passed Riza at him.

"I have to go pick up Al and Winry from the Junior High School and take them home." Ed replied with a shrug.

Riza raised a brow. "Who?"

Ed tilted his head and blinked at her. "Alphonse is my little brother and Winry is…..a friend, I guess."

"You guess?" Roy scoffed.

"Fine, she is Al's friend, but she is also a family friend I guess because her grandma and my dad were old friends." Ed snapped.

"I didn't realize you had such a short temper." Roy muttered.

"SHORT?" Ed yelled, getting ready to stand up, but Maes pushed him back down and sent Roy a reproaching look.

"Wow, even when I'm not referring to your height you react." Roy said, a smirk forming on his face.

Riza, who saw the smirk, turned to Ed quickly to continue the conversation. "Have you talked to your friends in Germany recently?"

Immediately a frown crossed over Ed's face. "Forget that. How did you all become friends?"

Sensing that she hit a touché subject, Riza allowed the subject change. "Well, Roy and I met when we were younger. We are neighbors. It was raining and he threw mud at me."

"Hey!" Roy growled. "You're the one who threw mud at me first."

"Mud?" Ed whispered in disbelief.

"You threw first." Riza retorted.

"No I didn't." Roy retorted.

"What does it matter?" Maes interrupted.

Sighing, Riza turned back to Ed. "We had a mud fight and became friends from there. We have been friends ever since. I met Maria, Gracia, and Rebecca from school."

"Maes and I became friends after we fought against some older students who were picking on Kain. From that, Maes, Kain, Riza, Maria, Gracia, Rebecca, and I became friends." Roy explained. "Heymans, Alex, Vato, and Jean came from a martial arts club we joined in Junior High School. Riza didn't join the club until we started Senior High School. That's basically how we met and became friends. Common interests."

"Are you a fighter, Fu-Kain?" Ed asked.

"Not really. Maes has given me a few lessons but I'm not really into fighting." Kain replied. "Do you like it here so far?"

Ed looked around the cafeteria. "Much better than Germany."

"What was wrong with Germany?" Kain asked confused. As far as he knew there was nothing wrong with it right now.

Sighing, Ed looked back at Kain. "Everyone knew me."

"I don't see how that is a problem." Heymans said confused.

Rolling his eyes, Ed rested his head in his upturned palm. "You wouldn't understand."

"Try me." Heymans challenged.

Ed looked at Heymans with calculating eyes before shaking his head. "No thanks." He picked up his tray and kicked his chair back. "Time for Chemistry!"

Heymans's mouth dropped open and he made gestures at Ed's retreating back as he tried to think of something to say. "Wha…..huh….ho…"

"He's hiding something." Roy said.

"It's not our business." Gracia replied as she picked up her tray and left the table.

"Hello Mr. Elric." Izumi greeted when Ed came into her classroom.

"Afternoon Curtis-sensei." Ed replied.

Izumi ruffled through some papers on her desk before finding the ones she needed. "Here are some papers you need for the Alchemists. I was going to give them to you yesterday but you had to leave almost as soon as you got there so I never got the chance to give them to you. The first is our training sessions' schedule. Those might change if things come up. The second one is a form that your dad needs to sign that will allow you to join the Alchemists and the last one is a form your father needs to sign that will allow you go to the national tournament if we beat the Homunculi. The national tournament takes place in North City so all students need consent from a parent or guardin." Izumi explained.

Ed paled a considerably amount. "Consent?"

Izumi raised a brow and looked at Ed suspiciously. "That won't be a problem, will it?"

Ed took the papers and flipped through them. One was a calendar with certain dates marked for training and when the tournaments were. The other two were each forms that needed to be signed. The first explained the Alchemists and the second was about the tournaments. "No, of course it won't. I'll get them back to you as soon as possible."

"Be sure that you do. Since you missed the first few months of our school year you missed the first tournament. The second tournament against the Homunculi is halfway through November and the third one is at the end of February. The national tournament is during spring vacation when school ends. We'll discuss it more when it gets closer." Izumi explained. She looked behind Ed at the students that were waiting for class to start.

"Okay. Thanks sensei." Ed replied. He looked at the students too. "Sorry for holding up class."

"Don't worry about it, Mr. Elric. Just go sit down now." Izumi said.

Ed nodded his head at her and went to his seat next to Riza.

The amber eyed girl shot him a worried look but Izumi started talking so she couldn't speak to him.

"I have your tests graded and will be returning them now. I expected better grades from a lot of you. If you just applied yourself more I know you could do better in here." Izumi said.

"She says that after every test we take." Riza whispered in Ed's ear. "The grades are mostly good. Some do badly, but most get C's and B's. It's very rare for anyone to get an A on her tests."

Ed nodded his head.

Izumi slid Ed's test onto the desk in front of him and gave him a suspicious look before moving on. Immediately and without looking at his grade, Ed grabbed the test and put it in his chemistry book.

Riza blinked at him. "You're not going to look at your grade?"

"Maybe later." Ed shrugged. "What about you?"

"I got an eighty-five. That's one of my best grades on a test in here." Riza said happily.

"Good job." Ed replied kindly.

"Elric, Hawkeye, pay attention." Izumi snapped.

The two teenagers snapped their mouths shut and turned to the front of the class.

"Mr. Elric!" Izumi called when class was over. "Stay for a moment."

Sighing, Ed shrugged when his friends looked at him and went over to Izumi's desk. "Curtis-sensei, what do you need?"

"I have never had a student get a hundred on one of my tests." Izumi stated.

Blinking, Ed pulled his test out of his book and looked at it. Right at the top in red was a hundred with an A next to it. "Oh."

"School in Germany started only a month ago. You couldn't have learned enough Chemistry in one month there to pass my tests. How did you do it?" Izumi asked, suspicion clear in her voice.

Ed scratched the back of his head, smiling nervously. "Well, I've been learning chemistry since I was ten. My dad is a chemist and wants me to follow in his footsteps."

"You don't sound happy about that." Izumi observed.

"I don't really want to be a chemist." Ed said with a shrug.

"Then don't. It's your life, Elric. Do what you want." Izumi replied, scribbling on a piece of paper. "Your dad can't make you become something you don't want to."

Ed frowned.

"He can control your life right now because you are a minor. Wait until you are an adult and can decide for yourself." Izumi said, handing the paper to Ed. "To get you into your next class."

Nodding his head, Ed took it and left the class, stuffing his test back in his book as he went.

"So nice of you to join us, Mr. Elric." Tucker said in a placidly annoying way as Ed walked into the classroom.

Ed rolled his eyes and handed the note to his teacher. This teacher was strange and creepy so Ed liked to avoid him. It was a good thing he only had him for study hall.

"Hey Ed!"

The young heir to his father's mansion, money, and sadly job and title of famous chemist looked at Jean, Riza, Vato, and Miles sitting in the back of the room.

"What did Curtis-sensei want?" Jean asked when he sat down.

"Nothing important." Ed replied as he turned his attention to Miles. "You're Miles, right? A senior?"

"That is correct." Miles replied monotonously.

"He's also the student council vice president." Jean said. "He works alongside Olivier."

Ed raised a brow. "How can you stand it? I sit next to her in trigonometry and she is a little scary."

"When you've known her as long as I have you get used to her and become strong." Miles replied. "You just got to do something to earn her respect then she isn't that bad. She doesn't like cowards."

Chuckling, Ed opened his chemistry book to start his chemistry homework.

"I can't believe Curtis-sensei made you take that test yesterday." Jean said to him.

Ed shrugged. "Just because I'm new doesn't mean I should get special treatment."

"Still, her tests are really hard. Your grade is going to get ruined with her tests." Jean replied.

"Hard, huh? What did you get?" Ed asked with a raised brow.

"A seventy-six." Jean replied happily.

Ed raised a brow at his cheerfulness.

"We said her tests were hard. So many people are happy with a C or B in her class." Riza said to Ed's shocked look.

"What did you get?" Jean asked.

Ed shrugged. "Not important."

"That bad?" Jean asked amused. He noticed the paper sticking out of Ed's book and grabbed it.

"Hey!" Ed growled, reaching for the paper, but Jean jumped to his feet and moved out of Ed's range. "Give that back."

Grinning, Jean shook his head. Ed jumped to his feet and tried to grab his paper back. Jean spun on his heels, paper behind his back, so his back was to the table they were sitting at.

"Give it." Ed snarled.

"What are you two doing back there? Sit down!" Tucker snapped at them.

Sheepishly, Jean and Ed apologized and sat down. When they were sitting, Ed glared at Jean and held his hand out. Smirking, Jean held his hands out with no paper.

"Where is it?" Ed growled.

"No way!" Vato said.

"What?" Riza asked.

Ed and Jean looked at the two. The former paled when he saw they had his test.

Riza looked up at the younger boy in shock. "A hundred? How did you possibly get a hundred on this test? This is only your third day here."

Completely red in the face, Ed laid his head on the table and put his opened chemistry book over it.

"He didn't!" Jean said surprised, grabbing the test from Vato. Sure enough, right at the top of the page was a hundred. "You actually got a hundred?"

Ed ripped the test out of Jean's hand and shoved it in his bag before burying himself in his chemistry homework still very red in the face.

**A/N: Japanese schools begin in April and Ed and Al didn't start school in Japan until October. Here is a list of breaks for Japan: **

_Second week in April:_ School begins

_May 3:_ Constitution Memorial Day

_May 5:_ Children's Day

_End of July through the end of August:_ Summer vacation

_September 15:_ Respect-for-the-Aged Day

_September 23 (or 24):_ Autumnal Equinox Day

_October 10:_ Health-Sports Day

_November 3:_ Culture Day

_November 23:_ Labor Thanksgiving Day

_December 23:_ Emperor's Birthday

_December 25 through January 7:_ Winter vacation

_January 15:_ Adults' Day

_February 11:_ National Foundation Day

_March 21 (or 20):_ Vernal Equinox Day

_Third week in March:_ School ends, and spring vacation begins

**Please Review!**


	8. Chapter 8

**Disclaimer: I don't own Fullmetal Alchemist, 'It's My Life' by Bon Jovi, or Last Resort by Papa Roach. **

**It's My Life**

**Thanks for reviewing!**

**A/N: Some people have reviewed and asked if I was making this an EdWin. I prefer EdWin because they obviously go together but Winry is three years younger than Ed in this story and I have Al blushing at her. I thought that both of those would be obvious hints that it's an AlWin. I guess it is, but some people just wanted to make sure. **

I'm going to be going back and forth between German and Japanese. When I switch languages German will be in **bold **and Japanese will be in _italics,_ for at least the first line of the change_._

"Talking"

Thinking 

_**Texting**_

**Chapter 8**

"A hundred? You can't be serious. Even I can't manage that. I can only average a ninety-five in there and you want to tell me that a new kid managed to get a hundred?" Roy said amused. He was sitting in the basement of his house with all his friends except Ed who should be showing up soon.

His house was two stories high. His family was a rather rich family in Japan. They were part of the Upper class society. Not the richest, but they were really well off. The first floor of his house consisted of the living room, the kitchen, a dining room, a closet, a bedroom, and a bathroom. Upstairs were three more bedrooms, another closet, and another bathroom. They also had a in ground pool and garden in the backyard. The house also had a basement with a bathroom where Roy and his friends would hang out sometimes when his parents were home.

The basement had a plush maroon carpet with a tan leather couch, loveseat, and two recliners. A purple bean bag sat in front of the coffee table where Maes always sat. On the opposite side of the coffee table was a blue bean bag that Jean was sitting in. In the corner between the couch and loveseat was a corner table. Between the two recliners was another table. Against the wall in the corner, sitting on a cabinet was a stereo. On the shelves below the stereo was a collection of CDS. On the opposite wall of where the seats were was a TV stand with a television on it and a collection of movies were littering the floor and around the television on the TV stand. Pictures of the gang from the past years were spread along the wall. The uniform jackets and shoes of the teens were thrown by the stairs, waiting to be picked up when the teens left. Their bags were sitting at their feet while their books were sitting in their laps or on the tables.

"It's no joke. I saw the test too." Riza said, looking up from her trigonometry book. "He was embarrassed about it, I think, since he didn't talk to us for the rest of study hall."

"Embarrassed?" Roy asked in disbelief with a raised brow. "I would be jumping for joy if I got a hundred on one of Curtis-sensei's tests."

Maes frowned at him. "Course, because we've known you for years."

"What are you getting at?" Vato asked confused.

Maes shrugged and went back to his chemistry. "Ed is new here. He doesn't know how we would react to his grade. He's probably embarrassed because he's made friends with us and he's probably afraid we'll make fun of him for getting such a good grade when it's his first week here. Afraid he'll be called a nerd." Maes sent a look at Jean.

"Well this just proves that he is." Jean replied sourly from the looks he was getting.

"You could….." Riza started to say.

"Be nice." Jean interrupted. "We only made friends with him today so I still don't know how I feel about him."

Gracia, who was sitting on the couch behind Maes, slid off the couch to sit in front of the couch to look at Jean. "Being rude isn't going to help you figure him out. You have to be nice and try to make friends with him."

Jean held his hands up in surrender. "I know. I plan to if he ever gets here."

"That's a good point. Where is he? He should have been her by now." Roy said with a frown, looking at the stairs.

Ding dong!

"Perfect timing!" Roy said.

Riza rolled her eyes at Roy's amusement. "You don't know that is him."

"Well, I guess I should go find out." Roy dumped his trigonometry book on the table and left to go upstairs.

At the top of the stairs, Roy's mother stepped in front of him. "I thought all your friends were here already."

"New friend." Roy explained with a shrug.

Smiling, Roy's mother stepped out of his way. "Who is it?"

"Edward Elric." Roy said as he stepped off the stairs and headed to the front door. He threw the door open so violently that the smaller boy on the other side jumped in surprise. "Took you long enough to get here."

"Sorry, I was hungry." Ed said with an eye roll. "So I decided to pick up some pizza." He shook his hand that was holding two pizza boxes.

"You're forgiven." Roy said, stepping aside to let the smaller boy in. "I'll get some drinks. I know what everyone likes except you."

"Whoever said you could have some of my pizza?" Ed asked bristling.

Roy smirked. "There is no way you can eat two whole pizzas."

Ed's eye twitched. "WHO THE HELL ARE YOU CALLING SO SMALL THAT HE CAN ONLY EAT A CRUMB EVERY DAY OTHERWISE HE'LL EXPLODE?"

*Basement*

Jean's pencil dropped from his head as a dazed look crossed his face. "I think Ed is here."

"That he is." Riza murmured, not once looking up from the problem she was working on.

"He can really yell. How can it not bother you?" Kain asked as he patted his ears to get the ringing in them to stop.

Riza shrugged. "You should be used to it to since you are always in Curtis-sensei's class."

*Upstairs*

Grinning, Roy closed the door and pushed Ed farther into his house. "You have some interesting rants."

"Who was yelling?" Ed looked around to see a petite female with shoulder length black hair and sparkling black eyes.

"That was Ed, Mom. He's got a good pair of lungs, wouldn't you agree?" Roy said amused.

"That he does. Hello Edward-kun. I'm Lisa Mustang, Roy's mom." Lisa said kindly.

Roy pushed Ed forward again. "Nice meeting you, Mustang-san." Ed called over his shoulder.

"Drink?" Roy asked as he dragged Edward farther into the house away from his mother. She could be really embarrassing sometimes. He wasn't going to let Ed find out anything embarrassing about him right at the beginning of their possibly new strange friendship.

"Dr. Pepper?"

"Sure." Roy nodded his head and opened the basement door. "They're down there. I'll be back in a few."

Ed carefully maneuvered down the stairs. With his messenger bag, which was full of books, on one shoulder and two pizza in hand it was a little difficult to get down the narrow stairs.

"PIZZA!"

The young boy jumped in shock again at the loud yell when he made it to the bottom of the stairs. He looked over at his friends sitting in front of the TV, particularly Jean, who was the one to yell. "Yeah, pizza."

Riza turned to Jean with a semi-smug look. Jean ignored her as he got up to take the pizzas from Ed so the smaller boy could set his bag down and take his boots off, showing (surprise, surprise) black socks. As they were doing this, Riza and Kain were moving their books around to make room for Ed to sit around the coffee table with them.

"What's with the pizzas?" Maria asked once Ed was settled.

"I'm hungry." Ed explained shortly as he opened one of the boxes and took a slice out.

The others took their own slices to eat and starting talk. Once Roy came back with a tray of drinks in plastic cups and sat down with his one slice everyone reached for their own specific drink. Each drink was in a certain colored glass. Mountain dew was in the green glasses. Dr. Pepper was in the red glasses. Pepsi was in the white glasses. Water was in the blue glasses and etc. They made this system a while ago so they would stop grabbing the wrong drink.

"Is this why it took you so long to get here?" Heymans asked, chewing on his pizza between words, causing the girls to glare at him in disgust.

Ed swallowed the pizza in his mouth before replying. "Partially. I also had a few things at home that needed done before I could leave."

"Like?" Jean asked curiously.

"Like none of your business." Ed snapped. In truth, his father was at home and demanded to know where Ed was going when he should be studying. He had to explain the study group his friends have and convince his dad to let him go. He thought it unwise at first because he doesn't know about this group and they might distract Ed from studying. Al helped convince him by saying that Ed never got distracted from studying and it would be good for his brother to study with friends because they could test each other with what they learned.

"Well, then." Jean huffed.

Ed rolled his eyes. "Ever heard of personal matters?"

"Oh." Jean said, grinning sheepishly. "Sorry."

"So, if you don't mind me asking, why did you have to leave right after you arrived at the training session yesterday?" Riza asked curiously.

Ed chewed slowly on his pizza to keep from answering right away. He looked at Riza with calculating eyes to figure out why she wanted to know this. "My brother was looking for something to eat when a knife fell off the counter and cut his arm." _Best to not let them know we have cooks._ "I had to go to the hospital to fill the forms outs."

"Isn't that the responsibility of your parents?" Riza asked.

The young boy sighed. Of course this conversation would come up on this day. "My dad has crazy work hours. He can't leave work. He doesn't even answer his phone while working. And my mom…." Ed sighed and ran a hand over his face. "She died five….no…..six years ago today."

An awkward silence reined over the occupants of the room. Ed was leaning back on his hands and staring up at the ceiling, lips moving as he spoke silently. The other occupants of the room were either uncomfortable, looking at Ed sadly, or in Alex's case, silently crying about it all.

When he was finished quietly talking to his mom, Ed let his arms drop and fell on his back. He didn't believe, but he always felt that his mom was around, like she was still in his heart and protecting him danger.

To get out of this awkward moment of silence, Jean cleared his throat, startling a few of his friends. "So you are basically the caretaker for your brother?"

"Whenever dad is at work, yeah." Ed replied, not looking at his friends as he was still laying on his back and looking at the ceiling. "What about you guys? Do you have siblings?"

"I have an older sister in college." Maria said.

"I have an older sister, Olivier, as you know, and a younger sister." Alex said proudly.

Ed raised his head off the ground to give Alex a strange look.

"Don't mind him. He's just really proud of his family." An annoyed Heymans said.

"I have two older brothers." Kain told Ed, who dropped back to the ground.

"Baby brother." Rebecca said.

"And that is everyone with siblings." Roy said, clapping his hands once as if closing a show.

Rolling his eyes, Ed sat up and pulled his messenger bag closer to him. "You're a weirdo." He told Roy as he pulled out his history book.

"Being weird is good, little one." Roy replied with a smirk.

"LITTLE!" Ed screamed, ready to go in full rant mode and to punch Roy in the face. Before he could do either, though, Jean and Maes were able to pin him to the ground with the latter putting his hand on Ed's mouth.

"Stop making him mad!" Jean huffed as he struggled with Ed.

Once Ed calmed down and stopped struggling Maes and Jean let go of him and moved slowly back to their seats so they could be sure that Ed wouldn't try it again. Ed sat back up, straightened his black jacket, and sent a withering glare at Roy that made even trained soldiers have to look away.

"Hey Ed, I was wondering. How can you afford such an expensive car?" Vato asked in an attempt to ease the anger Ed was feeling at Roy. It seemed to work as the anger was quickly replaced by embarrassment and tensed shoulders.

"Uh…"

"What are you so nervous about? Did you steal it?" Breda's elbow nudged Ed's side and he grinned at the boy.

"Course not. I'm no thief." Ed said defensively.

Roy chuckled. "Why so defensive?"

The young boy scowled and crossed his arms. When his arms were crossed it meant he was angry or he was being defensive and had to trend carefully on the subject. If he didn't he would be digging himself into a deeper hole than he already was in.

"Ed is hiding something." Maes said in a sing-song voice. Inside, though, he was worried for his friend. He was trying to hide it, but he was a soon-to-be investigator and could see it. Behind his angry and tough eyes was a sad story. No matter how hard he tried to hide it by being strong and cool, Maes could see that he was upset.

Ed threw his cup at Maes's head. "Shut up."

"Wow." Maes ducked to let the cup hit the wall. "Violent."

"I won't deny that." Ed muttered as he flipped to the chapter in his history book. "I was wondering, the Homunculi. What is with them? When I was talking to Curtis-sensei it sounded like even she didn't like them, especially their master."

Frowns were seen all around the room at Ed's question. Kain knocked his book to the ground, getting it soaked by Heymans when he knocked his glass over. Ed looked at his friends confused. From the way they were acting it was like he said something wrong.

"Curtis-sensei and the Homunculi's master have some history." Maes began slowly, looking over at Roy with a sort of hopeful look in his eyes that he would take over the story. When Roy just looked back at him with a raised brow, Maes sighed and looked back at the impatient Edward. "Well, the Homunculi's master trained Curtis-sensei in martial arts years ago. But….well….they don't really get along. Curtis-sensei has some really different beliefs than her master. Curtis-sensei became a teacher about thirteen years ago and started the martial arts club that same year. Two years later the Homunculi was formed as an opposing martial arts club in our school."

"But who is the Homunculi master?" Edward demanded, before picking up his drink.

"I think her name is Dante." Riza replied uncertainly, looking up at the ceiling in thought.

Ed split his drink out all over the table.

"ED!" Roy, Maes, and Jean yelled as they jumped away from the table.

"Are you okay?" Breda asked, watching his friends in amusement.

Coughing, Edward nodded his head. "I'm great."

"Why did you react that way then when you heard the name Dante?" Vato asked suspiciously.

Edward slammed his book shut and shoved it back in his bag. "No reason. I have to go home. Got things to do you know. Good luck with your studying." He said hurriedly as he walked over to the stairs to grab his boots.

"But Ed, what is wrong? You can't really expect us to buy that nothing is wrong." Gracia replied with a frown.

"Sorry, it's just-" Ed pulled his right boot on. "I have to go home and check some things out. It's really nothing to worry about." He pulled on his left boot "A few years ago I was reading some books around my house and I just remembered something. I'm going to go check it out now before I forget." He finished before running up the stairs. "See ya!" He called over his shoulder.

At the top of the stairs Edward expertly spun on his heels to avoid running into Roy's mother. "Sorry Mustang-san. I have to go home."

"Oh, that's too bad. I just made cookies." Lisa Mustang said.

Ed stopped and turned back to her with delight shining in his eyes. "Cookies?"

Lisa chuckled. "Would you like one before you leave?"

"I'd love one." Edward said enthusiastically. He took a cookie off the plate, nodded his head at her, and ran out of the house before any of his friends could catch up to him.

"Ed, wait! What is going on?" Mustang yelled after him.

Ed looked over his shoulder at Mustang. He was just spinning on his heels past his mother. "Leave me al-oomph."

Roy had tackled Edward around the waist and they fell out of the house door together. They landed with a loud thump on the curved stone pathway that led to the driveway. It was such a shock to Edward. He thought he was far enough away from Roy to get out of there before the older teenager could catch him. But then again, he should have added in that Roy, like him, was trained.

"Damn it, Roy. Why can't you leave me alone?" Edward snarled. He twisted the upper half of his body so he could look at Roy with a glare.

Jean appeared in the doorway of the house suddenly. His eyes widened at the scene he came across. He grabbed Roy's arm and pulled him off of Edward while Maes pushed his way out of the house to grab Ed's arm and pull him to his feet.

"That's one way to get someone to stop and talk to you. Not a way I would recommend, but it is definitely an option." Riza said as she came outside.

Gracia looked over at Ed with a frown. "Oh Ed, you have a scrape on your chin." She got out a handkerchief to clean the dirt out of his scrape.

Riza, Jean, and Roy chuckled at the affronted look that crossed Maes's face when he saw Gracia cleaning off Ed's face. He looked so jealous of him, but it didn't seem like Ed or Gracia noticed. Ed was too busy blushing as Gracia rubbed dirt off his face and the pretty teenager was chuckling at Ed and making sure she got all the dirt off.

"Come on, Ed." Roy said, motioning for Ed to follow him with a huge grin.

Ed glared at him. "I told you I have to-"

Roy grabbed Ed's wrist and pulled him along the side of the house with Heymans pushing him from behind. "You made up the excuse that you had things to do on the spot. You aren't busy. I wonder if you know that you can tell your friends anything. We aren't going to betray your trust." The black haired boy said thoughtfully.

Edward snorted and pushed his friends off of him. "Yeah, that's what Russel, Psiren, Selim, Bald, and Isaac all said."

"Who?" Jean asked as the group came to the patio in the backyard.

"People who were supposed to be my friends." Edward growled. "Alfonse is the only one who didn't betray me."

"I thought Alfonse was your brother." Maes said.

"Alphonse is. Alfonse is my best friend from Germany." Edward explained.

Jean groaned. "There are too many Als."

"Only two." Ed said. "And besides, their names are spelt differently."

"But they are said the same way." Jean argued.

"Yes, so my brother is Al and my friend is Alfonse." Edward retorted. He took his phone out to check the time. "You should have seen them when they met. It was hilarious. It's kind of a good thing that Al is three years younger than us. He and Alfonse look very similar. If Al was any closer to our age it would be hard to tell who was who."

"As interesting as this all is, you didn't run because of that. You ran because of the name Dante. What is up with you and her name?" Roy asked suspiciously.

"Oh, that." Edward replied quietly. He shoved his hands in his pockets. "That is…..that is just…..if I am right about who she is, I really can't be in the Alchemists."

"What? What the hell is going on, Ed?" Jean asked shocked. "You're the one who-"

_There's always something I want say. But the words won't ever come out. Maybe I see another way. Or maybe I just see something you don't. These stories that you tell. Now I-_

Edward pulled his phone out, flipped it open, and turned away from his friends. "Hello…..No, I told you that I…..It wasn't schedule. You just made that up in the last hour…..Not this again. I told you the last time you did this…..Daaaad…..Fine. I'll be home in twenty….fifteen?...ten?...What the hell do you want me to do? Speed home?...FINE!" Slamming his phone shut, Edward rubbed his eyes in frustration.

"What's wrong?" Riza asked worriedly.

"Nothing. Dad is just being dad again. Trying to control everything in my life." Edward growled.

"What's going on?" Kain asked, putting a hand on his friend's shoulder.

Edward sighed. He looked at his friend with a sad smile, trying to decide whether or not to tell them. Each of them looked worried for him. If he didn't tell them, they would probably just fret about it. He didn't want them to lose any sleep over it. "My dad doesn't like me having a life outside academics or anything to do with school." He added so they wouldn't be suspicious about the martial arts club. "Anything else, he thinks he's in control of. He's been inviting girls to our house every few weeks for the past two years, trying to find the perfect girl that I'm supposed to marry."

All of his friends' mouths dropped open in shock. Jean and Roy were spluttering in shock. Kain was staring at him with wide eyes. Maes was looking at Edward, then at Gracia, trying to imagine what it would be like to have his parents pick his wife for him. Gracia was looking at Edward in sympathy. Alex was crying about injustice.

"He is what?" Heymans said in shock.

"An arranged marriage?" Riza asked.

Edward nodded his head. He shoved his hands in his pockets. "Even coming here was against his wishes. It was only because Al helped me that he let me come. And that didn't last long. He made me a dinner reservation with some girl at six thirty. I have to go."

**A/N: To anyone who thinks I should use Psiren's real name when Ed mentions her, don't say anything. Psiren's real name is my name and I can't imagine myself betraying a friend so I can't put her real name down.**

**Please Review! **


	9. Chapter 9

**Disclaimer: I don't own Fullmetal Alchemist, 'It's My Life' by Bon Jovi, or Last Resort by Papa Roach. **

**It's My Life**

**Thanks for reviewing!**

I'm going to be going back and forth between German and Japanese. When I switch languages German will be in **bold **and Japanese will be in _italics,_ for at least the first line of the change_._

"Talking"

Thinking 

_**Texting**_

**Chapter 9**

Roy watched Edward run from his backyard in shock before looking at his friends. They all looked equally shocked and worried for Ed. "This is crazy. We've only been friends with him for a day and already all this happened. What the hell is going on in that family of his?"

"Still, I think there are some things he is still keeping from us. He's got a lot of secrets." Maria said with a frown. She was worried for her new friend. From the conversation with they heard Ed have with his father on the phone, it didn't sound like things were going well between the two of them. She hoped he would be okay.

Maes grinned. "You forget, dear Maria, that you have a future investigator amongst your group of friends. I'll find out everything that our little friend is hiding. He can't keep anything from us. Though, I don't think I can do anything today. I won't be able to find him to watch him right now. He's already gone."

"Got to feel for that kid. I would hate to be set up." Jean said with everyone agreeing with him.

*It's*My*Life*

"Brother? What are you doing home so soon?" Al asked confused when his brother charged into the living room. He was sitting on the British tan leather couch that was in front of the t.v. A fancy foreign rug covered the floor. A book shelf that was filled was books lined one of the walls. On the opposite wall was a big window with the curtains pulled open. In front of the window was another leather couch of the same color.

The elder brother looked over at his brother to see him lounging on the couch with his sock covered feet kicked up on the coffee table in front of him. School books were piled on the table. One of them, math it looked like, was left opened on Al's lap. "You shouldn't be watching t.v. and doing homework at the same time.

Al shrugged. "It doesn't affect my studying at all. But you didn't answer my question."

Edward let out a loud sound of frustration. He strolled across the room and stopped where the bookcase ended. "Our dear father set up a dinner date for me sometime in the last hour. I can't believe he has to do this on the day mom died."

Blinking, Al sat up straight as his brother pulled a book off the bookshelf, causing that section of the bookcase to slide into the wall and move to the left behind the other bookcase. His brother disappeared behind the bookcase. He tossed his book aside and ran after his brother. "He can't ever leave you alone, can he? You were only studying with your friends. I don't see why he couldn't let you do that."

"I don't either." Edward mumbled as he continued up the spiral steps.

Al looked around the staircase in fascination. It was a spiral staircase that started in the living room. Nothing was on the walls except a railing. As he looked over his shoulder he saw the bookcase slide back into its position. "Where do these lead? I've never been up here. How did you know it was here?"

"I wanted to read that book I pulled off the shelf on Sunday and instead of getting the book, I got a secret passage. Apparently, those books were left here by the last people who lived here." Edward explained.

"And you didn't tell me about it?" Al said offended.

Ed shrugged. "Never had the chance. Been busy. Dad and the maids and butlers don't know about it. So," He looked at his brother with a mischievous grin. "Don't tell. It will be our little secret and hiding spot."

Al nodded his head with a smile. Having secrets like this with his brother were awesome. It was a lot of fun to talk about something in a code like speech and have an eavesdropper have no idea of what was going. And these secrets helped deeper the bond and trust between them.

With a satisfied smile, Edward continued up the stairs with his hands in his pocket. "Anywhere, these stairs lead to a small study. I'm planning on redoing the room when I get a chance to make it into a small hangout. Right now, there are just books in it that I need to look at."

"Don't you have a date?" Al asked.

"Not until six thirty." Ed replied.

Al took his phone out to check the time. "It's five past six, brother. Don't you have to meet her somewhere? And shouldn't you change your clothes?"

Ed snorted. "Al, I'm trying to annoy her to get rid of her. I don't want an arranged marriage."

"Oh, right. But you should still be courtesy." Al replied. When his brother didn't reply, Al rolled his eyes and continued. "Where is dad making you take her?"

"Some new fancy restaurant that just opened. It's called Le Café du Destin." Edward replied.

"Do you know her name?" Al asked.

Ed chuckled. "Um…Alice? Maybe."

Al hit his face. "You're definitely going to drive this one away easily."

Grinning, Ed came to the stop of the stairs and pushed the trapdoor opened at the top. He pulled himself up and dusted his pants off. "Be careful, Al. It's really dusty up here. I haven't gotten the chance to clean it up yet."

Al patted the dust off him, causing clouds to rise around him. He coughed a little from the dust so he waved it away. Looking around the room, he saw it was a small rectangular room. Book shelves and a desk sat in the room with a small rug. It was all piled high with dust. "What do you want from here?"

"A photo album and journal." Ed mumbled as he ruffled through the books on one of the shelves. "I found them in here when I first found this room. I need them for later." He pushed a book aside and grinned. "Found it!"

Ed looked at his phone for the time before tucking the books under his arm. "I have to go get changed and get out of here."

Al looked up from the book he was looking at. "Dad is going to be really mad at you for doing this again."

Rolling his eyes, Ed climbed out of the trapdoor and ran down the stairs. Al looked through the trapdoor at his brother with an amused-worried look. As soon as he was in the living room, Ed stumbled forward from changing from steps to an even leveled floor.

He ran out into the hallway, only to be stopped by Clarice, the head maid. "Master Edward, there you are. Your father has asked me to get an outfit set for you for your date. It is on your bed. And you are going to be late." She smiled knowingly at him.

"And the outfit?" Ed asked.

"It's nice, but not a good outfit for the restaurant you are going to." Clarice replied.

"So it will embarrass my date?" Ed said.

Clarice nodded her head. "If she really takes high class seriously."

Ed grinned. "Thanks Clarice. You are the best!" He gave her a quick hug and ran down the hallway then turned sharply to the left to jump onto the stairs. Ever since his father had started setting him up on dates, he has been purposely scaring them away. By his fifth arranged date, Clarice figured out his game and talked to him about it. She found out that he wants to meet a nice girl on his own and marry who he wants. Since then, she has been doing all she can to help him ruin the dates.

When he reached his room, Ed dropped his books and his messenger bag on his desk then went over to his bed. A pair of nice dark blue jeans, a white long sleeve button up shirt, a red t-shirt, a pair of black gloves, and a pair of black dress shoes sat on his bed. He quickly pulled them on and left his room.

"Have fun on your date." Al replied amused as he walked down the hall to his room with his backpack on his shoulder. "Don't embarrass this date as much as you did last time."

Ed laughed. "No promises, Al."

*It's*My*Life*

"You're twenty minutes late."

Edward smiled as he sat down across from the pretty brunette. She had shining green eyes that showed her annoyance at him. She was clad in a stunning green dressed that matched her eyes perfectly. The dressed stopped just above her knees by a couple inches. There was only one skinny strap to her dress that was on her right shoulder. Her long brown hair was tied into an elegant bun with a few strands falling down the right side of her face. She was a very pretty girl. "Sorry, traffic, you know how it is."

"That's no excuse. A gentleman should always arrive first." She said in snooty voice.

"Sorry, I must have missed that class at the gentlemen's club. I'll be sure to go back there and complain to them about it." Edward said sarcastically.

"Humph."

Ed smiled pleasantly at her. "Would you care to order, Alice?"

The girl glared at him. "My name is Julia, you jerk."

"Oh, whoops! An honest mistake." Edward replied.

"Mistake? Alice and Julia are nothing alike." Julia said angrily.

Ed blinked innocently. "Really? I must have really bad hearing then."

"Hello sir, madam. May I take your order?"

Ed looked up at the waiter. "Two orders of your cheapest meal and some water."

The waiter nodded his head and left.

"What are you doing?" Julia hissed. "I don't want cheap. You are rich so you should be buying me…."

Ed shrugged. "I don't want to spend a lot."

Julia glared at him. "You really know how to show a lady a good time." She took a closer look at him. "And what are you wearing? You were supposed to wear dress pants and a suit jacket in here."

"Suit jackets are so annoying, especially around the neck. I tell ya, you have no idea how stiff and annoying they are. You are lucky you don't have to wear them. I don't even get what the point of them is. Actually, you might look good in one with you muscular shoulders and arms. It would be good to hide all those boyish features I'm seeing about your body." Edward said indifferently.

Julia angrily stood up. "I don't need this. I thought you were supposed to be a gentleman, but I think my mother was sadly misinformed."

Ed kept a stoic face, but was internally cheering. He noticed the waiter coming back in the corner of his eye. "You're not leaving yet, are you? Our food just got here!"

Julia gave a humph and spun on her heels to march with head held high out of the restaurant. The heir to all of his father's stuff laughed and turned to the waiter. "Can I have the check?"

"What was that about?" The waiter asked.

"Oh, we just didn't think we were good for each other." Edward replied with a smirk. "So check?"

*It's*My*Life*

"Hey Edo!"

"WHAT THE HELL DID YOU CALL ME?"

"SHUT THE HELL UP, MR. ELRIC!"

Edward ducked his head at the angry look that Izumi gave him. He sent a glare at Maes out of the corner of his eye. "A word to the wise, don't ever call me Edo, especially if you want to have kids some day."

A scared looking Maes backed away from Ed's desk and sat back down at his where Roy was laughing his ass off. He hit Roy's shoulder before turning back to Ed, talking to him at a safe distance. "So, how was the date?"

The annoyed Edward turned into an insane grinning Edward. "Oh, absolutely wonderful. I got rid of her within the first ten minutes of my arrival."

"Rid of?" Jean snorted. "Aren't you supposed to show her a good time?"

"Maybe, if I wanted to date her. But all the girls my dad sets me up with are rich, snooty jerks. They aren't people you want to date. It would just be pure torture. I learned that after the first two girls my dad set me up with." Edward explained with a slight shudder. He glanced down at Envy and his friends. "Hey, how old is Envy?"

Riza blinked. "Where did that come from?"

"He's nineteen. He failed two times. Greed and Lust are his younger siblings. Lust is sixteen and Greed is eighteen." Maes explained confidently, though a little confused. "What does it matter?"

"I'll tell you at lunch since I want to talk about it in private." Edward explained, looking back at his friends. "I might have to leave the Alchemists because of this. It's a good thing I never got those forms signed and turned in."

Jean rolled his eyes. "I really don't understand you. Your family must have a lot of issues or something if something like this is going to take you from the Alchemists."

Ed shrugged and opened his mouth to reply but was cut off by there being a knock at the door. He looked at it to see Douglas-san enter the room with a box in her arms. She walked over to Izumi's desk and put the box down. "Issues? We just might. Didn't I tell you that my dad is taking my social life away?" He replied, turning back to his friends.

"What?" Kain asked confused.

"You said he didn't like you having a life outside of school." Vato replied.

Edward nodded his head. "I should have said he is taking my social life away. He doesn't like me hanging with friends or going out. It took Al and me forever to convince him to let me come to your house yesterday, Roy. He made that date yesterday because he wanted me to come home and away from you guys. Even though he doesn't know you guys, I think he thinks you will be a bad influence on me."

Roy snorted. "Your dad is an idiot."

Shrugging, Ed looked out the window. "My dad just wants-"

"Elric!"

Ed looked down at his teacher. "Yes sensei?"

"Come here." Izumi replied.

As he walked to the front of the room, Ed noticed that the secretary was gone and had left the box on Izumi's desk. "What can I do for you?" He asked as he came to a stop.

Izumi shoved the box and a pass in Ed's hand. "A few uniforms for you and a gym uniform. Go put one on."

Grumbling about having to wear the uniform, Edward left the room and went to the bathroom. He ripped the box opened once he was in a stall. Three pressed uniforms and his gym uniform were the sight that met him when the box was opened. Sighing in annoyance, Ed removed his blue buttoned up shirt that was left unbuttoned and his gray t-shirt and shoved them in the box then grabbed his white buttoned shirt and pulled it on.

"Stupid uniform." He muttered when the sleeve got caught in a joint of his automail arm. Once he got the sleeve unstuck, he pulled the black tie out and threw it around his throat. He tied it with an annoyed frown and tightened it. "Stupid ties. Been wearing them for years and have never gotten used to them." He pulled his dark blue jacket out and looked at it. There were only two buttons on it. One in the middle and one below it. "It's bad enough I have to wear these type of outfits to fancy dinners. Now I have to wear them every day for school."

Ed glanced in the box once he got his pants on and rolled his eyes. "Wow, they've even been kind enough to give me a new pair of shoes."

With his change completed, Ed closed the box and left the stall, stopping in front of the bathroom mirror. He examined himself with a thoughtful frown. Shining black dress shoes, black dress pants, a white dress shirt, a dark blue jacket, black gloves, and his tie. His tie was as tight as it could be without choking him. The sleeves of his white shirt were sticking out of his jacket a little bit and covering the ends of his gloves. In short, he looked like one of those rich snobs that he hated so much.

"This is not going to do." Edward mumbled. "Let's see. How can I fix this?" He pulled at his tie to loosen it and let its knot rest a little below his neck then he unbuttoned his jacket, then he unbuttoned the first two buttons of his white shirt. "Hmm. I think that is all I can do to fix this."

With his uniform fixed, Edward grabbed his box off the floor and left the bathroom. Before heading back to his class, he stopped by his locker and dropped the box off in his locket.

Izumi looked up from her book when Edward came into the classroom. She raised a brow, but let a small smile cross her lips. "Can't wear the uniform properly, can you?"

Ed scoffed. "No ma'am. I looked like a rich snob." He replied before heading to his seat. From the way he wore his uniform to the way he walked, he looked like one of those bad ass boys that acted like they were the boss of the school. Quite a few girls turned to look at him as he past, but he paid them no attention.

Jean let out a low whistle when Ed reached them. "You sure know how to grab attention, kid." He looked over Ed's shoulder at the girls who were looking at Ed like he was a piece of meat. "Seems Roy and I have some competition."

Ed chuckled. "I don't even want their attention. All they care about are looks."

"At least we have some boys here who care about more than looks." Maria said. She jerked her head at Jean and Roy. "They go for looks first when looking for a date."

A ghost of a smirk crossed Ed's face. "That will get you boys in trouble one day."

"Speaking from experience?" Roy asked with a smirk.

"No, from seeing it happen." Ed said. "One or two of my ex-friends."

"Bet you really enjoyed watching that go down." Heymans said.

Ed laughed. "Oh, I loved it."

Gracia smiled. "Well, I don't know if it will mean anything to you, but you look stunning the way you wear the uniform."

Ed blushed but accepted the compliment. Out of the corner of his eye he noticed Maes giving him an evil glare and gulped. Seems someone was extremely jealous.

*It's*My*Life*

Kain looked down at the drawing Ed was making in art class. They were doing portraits of someone and Ed's was of a beautiful woman sitting with a baby in her lap and another child who looked slightly older reading a book nearby. "That's a very good drawing. Who is it?"

The golden haired boy stopped with his pencil just a few centimeters from his drawing and looked up at Kain. "This? It's a picture of my mother, Al, and me from when we were just kids. It was taken about a year after Al was born."

"Your mother is very beautiful. I had no idea you could draw this well." Kain said as he continued to examine the drawing.

Sighing, Ed put his pencil down and locked his hands behind his head as he leaned back in his seat. "Well, if you knew my dad, then you would know that I have to excel in everything to make him happy. He wants me to be the best at everything. You know that he even told me the other day that if I hadn't wasted years on training to be a fighter that I could probably be in my first year of college right now?"

"Is that so? You must be really smart, Edward Elric!" Alex said from his seat.

Ed glanced at him. "Yeah, I guess, but I really just want a chance to act my age."

"It is so sad about your father pushing your education so hard on you." Alex replied morosely.

"So, your dad really doesn't want you to have any free time for yourself?" Kan asked.

Ed sighed and closed his eyes. "At one point he wasn't like this. But after mother died, our family changed. Nothing has been the same since her death. Our family went through so many changes since we lost her."

"Like what?" Kain asked curiously.

The younger boy shook his head. "I really don't want to talk about it right now. I told my friends in Germany after it started to happen and that is when everything began to change among us and caused them to begin to betray me."

"I'm sorry. I can see now that you have trust issues because of everything that happened in Germany." Kain said.

Ed nodded his head. "Coming to Japan is supposed to be a new start for me, for me to forget the last five years in Germany."

"Okay. I won't pressure you about what happened in Germany. But I hope that one day you can trust me enough to tell me." Kain replied before going back to his drawing.

Edward looked over at Kain, focusing so hard on his drawing, then at Alex, who gave him a reassuring grin that made him slightly nervous. He looked down at his portrait with a sad smile as he picked his pencil back up. "Kain, Alex."

The two friends looked back up at Edward, who kept his eyes trained on his drawing. "I hope that one day I can completely trust you to share what is going on in my family from my mom's death. Just please don't badger me about."

Kain and Alex shared looks and nodded their heads. They would make sure that all their friends knew this. If they badgered him, he might not ever trust them enough to talk to them. That wasn't the way to have a good, healthy friendship.

*It's*My*Life*

"Maes, you can't go investigating into Ed's life like we were planning to have you do." Kain said as he sat on the roof with his lunch tray in front of him.

"Why not?" Maes asked, a little edgy as he was still annoyed at Ed.

Kain gulped nervously. It was rare to see Maes even the tiny bit mad. "Well, he told Alex and me in art to not badger him about his life. Something more happened when his mom died and it changed his family. Whatever happened caused his friends to slowly betray him. He said that if he feels he can trust us completely that he will tell us. I think we should just wait for him. He has trust issues at the moment."

Alex nodded his head. "Kain is right. We just need to be friends to him and not betray him in any way, and in time he will tell us himself. He has already begun to tell us some things which means he either trusts us a little or the stuff he told us was irrelevant to him and he didn't feel the need to keep it to himself."

Roy lowered his bottle with a frown. "I hope it's the first one." He looked at Maes. "I think we should wait a little while before doing any investigating on our own."

Maes sighed. "Fine."

Edward pushed open the door, balancing his lunch and messenger bag on one side of his body. He shrugged his strap back up to his shoulder before walking over to his friends. He switched his tray to his left hand so he could let his bag drop to the ground before sitting down himself. "Hey guys."

"Hi Ed. What took you so long?" Rebecca asked.

"Curtis-sensei caught up with me in the hallway. She wanted to know about the forms for the Alchemists. Persistent, she is." Edward mumbled.

"Did you tell her that you might not be joining after all?" Roy asked with an eye roll. "It seems that every day it is you can or can't join. You always have a different reason."

"Oh, hardy har har." Ed retorted. He opened his bag and took two books out. One looked like a journal and the other was a photo book.

Jean raised a brow. "This is what you wanted to show us?"

Ed ignored him as he flipped the photo book open and flipped through it until he found a picture of a family. He put it in the center of the circle of his friends for them to see. "Recognize?"

"That's Dante, the Homunculi's master, and I'm guessing that kid would be Envy." Maes replied with a frown. "Where did you get this?"

"My house." Edward whispered. "I found these just after I moved in." He opened the journal. "This journal was written by….my…my father years ago. If I join the Alchemists, I might be reopening horrible wounds."

"Why? What do these pictures have to do with anything? They are just pictures of Dante and Envy." Roy asked.

Ed shook his head. "Go to the first few pages of that album."

Roy did as instructed and looked at the first picture in it. "I just see a picture of a couple."

"Look at the man. Does he look similar to someone you know?" Edward asked.

Roy scrunched up his brows as he looked at the picture. A frown came over his face as he looked up at Ed then down at the picture again then back at Ed. "It can't be. This man….he looks kind of like you. He even has gold eyes and hair like you. What is going on, Ed?"

"That's my father. I wanted to know Envy's age because I wanted to know how many years were between Dante and my mom."

"What?" Jean asked confused.

"My dad was married to Dante and she got pregnant. My dad left her sometime before the baby was born. The baby was Envy." Edward explained.

Silence came over the friends as they each stared at Edward in shocked disbelief. Ed kept his eyes trained on the journal in his lap. He couldn't face the looks that his friends were giving him. He told them this because he didn't want to keep it a secret and have them somehow find out later and be mad at him for not telling them. By telling them now, it was to be a show of trust and sort of a where to look for help.

"So…so you're saying that Envy is your half-brother?" Roy asked slowly.

Ed nodded his head. "_Dante is pregnant with our child. I don't know what to do about this. I can't have a child with her. She is not the woman I truly feel in love with. When I married her, I thought I loved her. But now, after being married to her for eight months, I realize that she is not the one for me. To marry is supposed to be a wonderful experience, but with Dante I just feel trapped and lost._" He turned a few pages. "_Dante is now five months along in her pregnancy. With each day that goes by, I feel more confined with her. I would just blame it on the hormones, but I've felt like this from a week after I married her. Why did I stay so long? Long enough to get her pregnant? I try to spend more time in the lab so I won't have to be around her. Spending the rest of my life with her and her child seems like hell the more I stay here. I think that I will be divorcing her soon._" He turned another page. "_I met the most wonderful woman today. Her name is Trisha Elric. She is very beautiful and kind. I don't recall ever meeting a woman more fine than her. When I saw her, she was at the park helping a little child after he fell off the swing. She saw me watching and came over to talk to me. I want to talk to her again. Get to know her more._"

"What is this?" Rebecca asked when Edward finished the last entry.

"My dad's journal from when he was married to Dante. I guess he and my mom lived here before moving to Germany. This is where they met." Edward explained.

"Then all of this is true. You are related to the Ouroboros, or at least Envy." Maes replied.

Edward nodded his head. "Dante is in charge of the Homunculi. If I were to join the Alchemists…."

"You would be bringing your father's past forward, revealing it, and causing a lot more trouble for your family, especially if Dante didn't take the divorce well." Heymans finished. He frowned. "And you stole Envy's dad."

"What?" Ed asked confused.

"Well, Envy never got to know his dad because he left before he was born. And your dad loves you." Heymans said slowly with his frown deepening. "And if Envy finds out about this, he'll hate you even more than he already does."

Jean let out a low whistle. "Wow. This is a lot worse than any of us thought."

"What? The situation with Envy or just my whole life in general?" Edward growled.

Jean frowned, pondering the question. "I think both." He answered slowly so as not to make Edward angrier.

Edward groaned and fell onto his back. He stared up at the sky, watching the clouds slowly move along as the world blew. It looked so simple and nice up there, like there wasn't a problem in the world. Why couldn't his life be that easy? Just blowing in the wind.

"Your mother gone, you father taking your social life away, your father trying to set you up, your father always being at work so you have to take care of your brother a lot, and now this situation with Envy and Dante." Riza listed off. She smiled sadly. "And who knows what else you aren't telling us."

Roy slammed the photo album shut and grabbed the journal out of Ed's hands. "I say join the Alchemists." Ed stared at him. "Don't hide from the past, Edward. Go at it, stare it down. Hiding is for cowards. You have to face the past and get passed it already. Don't tell you dad about Dante being involved if you are afraid of him not letting you be involved because of her."

The younger boy winced. Don't tell his father. He couldn't tell his father any of this. It would just get him in a lot of trouble. But Roy did have a point. He shouldn't be running from this. This wasn't his problem. It was his father's problem. Maybe he should face the past, even if it wasn't his past.

"Hey Ed, I was curious. Do you plan to hang out with us when it doesn't include studying?" Kain asked.

Ed blinked and sat up. "Well, yeah. Why?"

Kain shrugged. "Well, you said your father was taking your social life away."

A smirked crossed his face and he stood up. He moved over to the edge of the roof which was surrounded by a metal fence to stare down at the ground. "Yes, he is. But the thing is, he works late hours and Al and Clarice cover for me. So I manage to keep my social life. And since he is so busy now with his new job, I don't have to have so many chemistry lessons with him now."

"You know you just told us two things that we didn't know before." Maes pointed out. "One, who is Clarice? And secondly, chemistry lessons?"

Ed turned around and slid down the metal fence. "My father is a chemist and wants me to follow in his footsteps. He's been teaching me chemistry since I was ten. When Al turned ten he began to teach him too, but he wants me to be the chemist, not Al. Since I'm older, he wants me to be the heir to his lab and everything. He sets aside at least two hours a day and all of Sunday to be with us. And at least one of those hours was just time to teach chemistry to us. Six hours on Sunday was Chemistry lessons."

"I think I can understand how you can get a hundred on one of Curtis-sensei's tests without getting time to study now." Kain said.

Ed nodded his head. "And Clarice is the head maid. She has been there for me since I was a baby, helping my mom take care of me and Al. I guess she learned from my mom since she wants me to be happy and helps me sabotage my dates and helps me hide that I'm hanging with friends from father." He paused and looked at the sky thoughtfully. "Or she would be doing that if I had a lot of friends in Germany that didn't betray me."

"Dude, your dad is…." Jean started.

"He's not all bad." Ed defended. "He did buy me my car."

"You know what that sounds like?" Maes asked.

Ed looked confused. "Not really."

"A bribe to keep you from complaining too much." Maes replied. "A bribe to keep you happy, something that would keep you from realizing how much you are mad at your dad and hate him for doing this to you."

Ed glared at him. "I don't hate my dad. He's done so much for me and loves me. I could never hate him. We have our argument like all kids do with their parents, but that is normal. There is nothing wrong. There are no bribes."

"Denial is not a pretty thing." Jean said.

Ed scoffed at them and looked back at the sky. "I tell you a couple things, and now, all of a sudden, I'm supposed to hate my dad. Idiots."

"So will you be staying in the Alchemists?" Riza asked.

"When is the next meeting?" Ed asked.

"Tomorrow and then there is one Saturday." Vato answered.

Ed nodded his head and stood up. "Then I'll take until the meeting tomorrow to figure out my answer to your question." He grabbed his books out of Roy's hands and shoved them in his bag before throwing it over his shoulder and grabbing his tray off the ground, yelling a good-bye over his shoulder.

**A/N: Please Review! **


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